Shane Cole
Resurgent wireless carrier T-Mobile is believed to have sold around 540,000 iPhones during its fiscal 2013 third quarter, a number that lags far behind the company's rivals and indicates suffocating constraints on supply of Apple's newest handsets.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere
While T-Mobile refused to provide actual sales figures for the iPhone during the carrier's quarterly conference call, Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert said Apple's devices accounted for about 15 percent of the 3.6 million phones sold under the T-Mobile brand, according to AllThingsD. The resulting sum is a significant step down from sales posted by Sprint and Verizon, who moved 1.4 million and 3.9 million iPhone units, respectively, in the same period.
Despite the low volume, T-Mobile deemed the launch of Apple's new flagship iPhone 5s and mid-range iPhone 5c "successful" and cited the launch, together with sales of the iPhone 5 prior to the new models' introduction, as key drivers of the carrier's nearly $1 billion year-over-year jump in handset revenues. Overall smartphone shipments made a similar leap, from 2.3 million one year ago to 5.6 million in the third quarter.
Deutsche Telekom-backed T-Mobile has made Apple devices a focal point of its turnaround strategy in recent months. The carrier began selling the iPhone 5 in June and was a launch partner for the iPad Air earlier this month, offering 200 megabytes of mobile data per month to all owners of Apple's tablets.
Update: Following the conference call, T-Mobile told AllThingsD that the carrier sold more tablets on iPad Air launch day than it did during the entire preceding quarter. As it did in relation to iPhone sales, T-Mobile declined to be more specific.
After languishing in fourth place for years and in the aftermath of a failed acquisition by AT&T, T-Mobile has been making strides against its larger rivals. The third quarter brought 1 million net new customers on a 6 percent jump in earnings to $1.3 billion.
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17 Comments
I keep reading about the iPhone is way overpriced but none of that matches up to the reality that they any sell enough of them and that carriers that waited long to ink a deal with Apple are the ones that have to play catchup regaining all the customers they lost over the years. It's more likely Apple isn't charging enough, but I'm glad they aren't taking that advantage.
Looks like T-Mobile's BYO iPhone approach may be backfiring on them. The other carriers obviously pre-ordered a LOT more iPhones since they "subsidize" them. Unfortunately for T-M, they are relying heavily on unsubsidized iPhones, which meant they had to be individually ordered by customers.
I keep reading about the iPhone is way overpriced but none of that matches up to the reality that they any sell enough of them and that carriers that waited long to ink a deal with Apple are the ones that have to play catchup regaining all the customers they lost over the years. It's more likely Apple isn't charging enough, but I'm glad they aren't taking that advantage.
As stated earlier... Apple doesn't have a demand problem... it has a supply problem. They can't make enough of their high margin product.
This is likely part of the reason they likely didn't include TouchID in the iPads this year... just not enough supplier pipeline.
as for price... Apple makes it's money on the uplifts (LTE and Flash)... that the base unit price is probably right for a 'no customer surprise' plan (that's the best thing about apple... they don't fluctuate price... they let inflation and moores law drive 'value' increase at a consistent price point)
Looks like T-Mobile's BYO iPhone approach may be backfiring on them. The other carriers obviously pre-ordered a LOT more iPhones since they "subsidize" them. Unfortunately for T-M, they are relying heavily on unsubsidized iPhones, which meant they had to be individually ordered by customers.
a growth in earnings and subscribers is a terrible effect of this backfire;-)
The real reason... TMo likely didn't have the cash/credit on hand to buy enough phones for that 10 day sales blitz at the end of the quarter, but most of this was the lull of no one buying iPhone 5 phones during the quarter, waiting for the 5c/5s release... not their unsubed phones... which are plentiful as people switch or sell their 'old' phones.
[quote name="Sacto Joe" url="/t/160576/t-mobile-faced-severe-iphone-5s-constraints-in-q3-2013-limiting-sales-at-launch#post_2430445"]Looks like T-Mobile's BYO iPhone approach may be backfiring on them. The other carriers obviously pre-ordered a LOT more iPhones since they "subsidize" them. Unfortunately for T-M, they are relying heavily on unsubsidized iPhones, which meant they had to be individually ordered by customers.[/quote] It is growing earnings and subscribers - hardly a backfire. Moreover, T-Mobile orders the inventory like everybody else. Customers go in the store and pick what is on hand. It sounds to me that Apple just could not provide enough phones.