Sprint quickly followed up on comments made by CEO Marcelo Claure by rolling out new promotions heading into the holiday shopping season. The new deals involve expanding its device-leasing program to Apple tablets.
Sprint said that beginning Nov. 14, customers can pick up an iPad Air 2 or iPad Mini 3 with no money down and monthly payments starting at $20 per month for the iPad Air and $17 per month for the iPad Mini. Those payments are required to be made over a 24-month period, resulting in total payments of $480 for the 16 GB iPad Air 2 and $408 for the 16 GB iPad Mini 3. At the end of the two-year period, customers can either trade in that device for a new model with the same two-year lease; pay off the remaining cost on the device and keep it; continue making the monthly payment; or turn in the device and terminate service. Sprint is currently selling the iPad Air 2 for $630 at full retail, with the iPad Mini 3 going for $530.
Customers can, in turn, connect those devices to one of Sprint’s shared data plans for $10 per month, or for free through the end of 2015 on data buckets of at least 20 gigabytes. Customers can also activate the devices on a stand-alone tablet plan, which start at $10 per month for 100 megabytes of data.
The offering mirrors Sprint’s “iPhone for Life” plan launched in September and updated last month.
Claure touted the financial sense for consumers of the leasing model it began with the latest iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models, noting it makes sense to lease items that depreciate, like “cars or like cellphones.”
Sprint last week reported mixed quarterly financial results, although most of its subscriber growth was driven by wholesale and affiliate channels. Sprint did report that on the postpaid side it managed to attract 261,000 tablet net additions, which was offset by the loss of 533,000 smartphones and “other devices.”
Sprint vows to remain aggressive
The latest offering followed comments by Claure at an investor conference this week where the recently installed CEO noted that Sprint had a number of additional initiatives set to launch in the coming weeks.
“I can tell you that you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Claure said at the Wells Fargo Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. “I can tell you that the next two or three weeks are going to be extremely exciting. … I’ve seen some advertising by competitors that bothers me, when they use the words best pricing ever or stuff like that, but if your consumer uses them, you actually think it is the best pricing everywhere and you’re overspending. So we are going to make it a very clear point and you will see why we are going to be the leader in pricing for now.”
Sprint has aggressively targeted the market since Claure was installed as CEO in early August. In addition to the iPhone and leasing programs, the carrier has remodeled its family plans and offered up new individual plans based on unlimited services.
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