Not sure which model to pick next time you upgrade your smartphone? Your carrier may soon let you “try before you buy” by leasing you a smartphone. TMNG Global (TMNG), a software and services provider to carriers, is now offering its clients a business model for mobile device leasing. TMNG will offer the service through a TMNG subsidiary called Mobile Device Lease xChange (MDLx).
MDLx will be headed up by TMNG’s Tom Murphy. Murphy says the suggested lease payments will be $20 to $30 per month, not including voice and data plans. TMNG will collect a fee from the carrier for each lease signed.
If carriers pick up on the leasing program it will be the first of its kind in the United States. Many international travelers are already familiar with the concept of phone leasing as a way to avoid excessive mobile bills when they are overseas. And in the United Kingdom, O2 has started leasing smartphones to customers who use their own SIM cards with their leased phones.
One big question for TMNG is how many consumers will want to lease a phone when carriers and retailers are already offering such deep discounts on new models. Walmart (WMT)is currently offering the Nokia Lumia 710 smartphone for free with a two-year T-Mobile USA contract, and operators have made the wildly popular iPhone 4S available for as little as $200 with a contract.
TMNG says the new program is not for consumers who cannot afford a smartphone, but rather for those who are willing to pay the premium associated with a lease. MDLx head Tom Murphy says the target customer is a tech-savvy consumer who wants “technology assurance,” or the ability to always carry a cutting edge smartphone and upgrade easily.
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