Cricket/Leap Wireless Reports iPhone Sales Weaker Than Expected

[MacRumors]

Six months after it started carrying the iPhone, U.S. regional prepaid carrier Cricket reports that it will only purchase half of its first-year commitment of iPhones by June 2013, reports BGR.

Back in June 2012, Cricket started carrying the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S after committing to buy at least $900 million worth of iPhones from Apple over the life of its deal with Apple. It got the iPhone 5 a week after it launched on the major U.S. carriers.

The carrier revealed that it is on pace to purchase only half of its first-year commitment from Apple through June 2013. The information in the filing contradicts earlier statements made by the company's chief financial officers Jerry Elliot. The executive previously said that "sales of Apple devices were pretty good in the fourth quarter" and the carrier wasn't concerned about meeting its commitment with Apple.

Cricket is generally considered one of roughly half a dozen "super-regional" carriers in the United States, with more than 5 million customers. The carrier offers a nationwide network through roaming agreements and its prepaid model offers simple pricing with no activation fees or overage charges.

Article Link: Cricket/Leap Wireless Reports iPhone Sales Weaker Than Expected

[OrangeSVTguy]

Does their service suck?

[M-O]

Originally Posted by OrangeSVTguy

Does their service suck?

yes.

[albusseverus]

What's interesting here… (and it's not Samsung can't outsell the superseded iPhone 4S, much less the 5, see i can play that game too)

…is that one exec says one thing, the next exec says another.

Since they're getting paid more than all the contributors to this thread combined, let's pretend they're not stupid. The question becomes, "What is Cricket/Leap up to with these statements?"

Does pretending iPhone isn't selling well advantage Cricket/Leap in some way?

• Does it advantage them in dealing with Apple? Does it push them into a 'we're selling less, so we have to buy less/pay less' clause in the contract?
• Is it a bargaining position? 'Give us a better deal or we'll talk down your product and maybe your share price.'
• Does it get them a better deal with Samsung, if they talk down the competition?

Who knows what's going on? We don't get to see the contracts. What's clear, is that Cricket/Leap are up to something. Keep the focus on the Exec manipulation of the facts.

[ctcampbell]

So carrier commits to a number, and half way through the year will have purchased half of that number. How is this news?

Edit: Ah, half of their commitment for the year to date, not calendar year.

[Junito]

Originally Posted by OrangeSVTguy

Does their service suck?

Service is not bad, the biggest hurdle is dishing $649 for the phone. Many Americans find it a bitter pill to swallow.

[GuitarDTO]

I like my iPhone 5...BUT. It is starting to feel stale. Meanwhile, Samsung keeps pushing the envelope with the Galaxy series (Note, S3)....the Lumia's are somewhat interesting, and I'm also curious to check out what the new Blackberry has to offer. I'm not surprised by this type of news, there is a lot of great competition out there now, and we as consumers (not fanboys) all benefit.

EDIT: and yes, who the F is cricket?

[QCassidy352]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

I like my iPhone 5...BUT. It is starting to feel stale. Meanwhile, Samsung keeps pushing the envelope with the Galaxy series (Note, S3)....the Lumia's are somewhat interesting, and I'm also curious to check out what the new Blackberry has to offer. I'm not surprised by this type of news, there is a lot of great competition out there now, and we as consumers (not fanboys) all benefit.

EDIT: and yes, who the F is cricket?

Wow, what an original and helpful comment. Totally not just stirring the pot with exactly the same sentiments that get repeated a hundred times in every thread that mentions the iPhone. Well done sir.

[GuitarDTO]

Originally Posted by QCassidy352

Wow, what an original and helpful comment. Totally not just stirring the pot with exactly the same sentiments that get repeated a hundred times in every thread that mentions the iPhone. Well done sir.

This whole thread being on the front page has no other point than to stir the pot....so don't pretend like you came in here with your panties not already in a bunch. My comments aren't any worse than anyone else's, and no comments on this topic are going to help anyone, so get over yourself bro. I stand by my comments.

[QCassidy352]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

This whole thread being on the front page has no other point than to stir the pot....so don't pretend like you came in here with your panties not already in a bunch. My comments aren't any worse than anyone else's, and no comments on this topic are going to help anyone, so get over yourself bro. I stand by my comments.

Geez, nice response to a compliment, "bro."

[mig0]

I would've bought an iphone to use on cricket but for 1 very big problem. The iphone from cricket is not unlocked for domestic use with AT&T or Tmobile, and I'm pretty sure there's no way to use the phone on Sprint or Verizon either. That defeats the entire purpose of buying an unlocked phone. At least buying an unlocked sprint or verizon phone, it can still be used on AT&T/Tmobile/etc. even if the LTE bands are different and not supported.

[GuitarDTO]

Originally Posted by QCassidy352

Geez, nice response to a compliment, "bro."

Apologies if I have totally misread your comment. It doesn't read like a compliment.

[3N16MA]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

I like my iPhone 5...BUT. It is starting to feel stale. Meanwhile, Samsung keeps pushing the envelope with the Galaxy series (Note, S3)....the Lumia's are somewhat interesting, and I'm also curious to check out what the new Blackberry has to offer. I'm not surprised by this type of news, there is a lot of great competition out there now, and we as consumers (not fanboys) all benefit.

EDIT: and yes, who the F is cricket?

Apple has sold a record number of iPhone 5. This is more of a reflection of Cricket than the iPhone 5.

[Essenar]

Originally Posted by 3N16MA

Apple has sold a record number of iPhone 5. This is more of a reflection of Cricket than the iPhone 5.

No, the issue is that Apple isn't subsidizing the pricing with Cricket because it's a no contract commitment.

What would you rather do, pay $600 for an iPhone 5 followed by $55 a month for unlimited text, minutes and data on a CDMA 3G network (1.5Mb/s if you're LUCKY) or $650 for an iPhone 5 and pop in a Walmart based T-Mobile SIM card and get 100 minutes, unlimited text messages and 5GB of 4G data at HSPA+ speeds mostly throughout the nation?

It's an easy choice to make. It's the same reason Verizon needed LTE on the iPhone 5 and they're Big Red, leaders of marketshare for users in the United States.

[noiseordinance]

Wait... so a GHETTO cellular company is having a harder time selling a luxury phone? Strange!

[Rogifan]

Originally Posted by noiseordinance

Wait... so a GHETTO cellular company is having a harder time selling a luxury phone? Strange!

Apple is doomed.

[Rocketman]

Response to PMs: Verizon. California.

[Dustman]

Originally Posted by Essenar

No, the issue is that Apple isn't subsidizing the pricing with Cricket because it's a no contract commitment.

What would you rather do, pay $600 for an iPhone 5 followed by $55 a month for unlimited text, minutes and data on a CDMA 3G network (1.5Mb/s if you're LUCKY) or $650 for an iPhone 5 and pop in a Walmart based T-Mobile SIM card and get 100 minutes, unlimited text messages and 5GB of 4G data at HSPA+ speeds mostly throughout the nation?

It's an easy choice to make. It's the same reason Verizon needed LTE on the iPhone 5 and they're Big Red, leaders of marketshare for users in the United States.

except you wouldnt be getting t-mobile's hspa+ 4g. you'd be getting gsm 2g @ 10kbps.

[peteo]

Originally Posted by Essenar

No, the issue is that Apple isn't subsidizing the pricing with Cricket because it's a no contract commitment.

What would you rather do, pay $600 for an iPhone 5 followed by $55 a month for unlimited text, minutes and data on a CDMA 3G network (1.5Mb/s if you're LUCKY) or $650 for an iPhone 5 and pop in a Walmart based T-Mobile SIM card and get 100 minutes, unlimited text messages and 5GB of 4G data at HSPA+ speeds mostly throughout the nation?

It's an easy choice to make. It's the same reason Verizon needed LTE on the iPhone 5 and they're Big Red, leaders of marketshare for users in the United States.

Why would'nt you walk into a walmart and get strait talk for your iPhone. $45 a month unlimited talk,text, internet. It runs on at&t so you dont even need an unlocked iPhone.

----------

Originally Posted by chairguru22

Cricket agrees to sell $900 million in iPhones in 3 years, assuming it costs them $200/phone, that's 4.5 million iPhones. They only have about 6.5 million customers. So they want 70% of their customers to buy an iPhone???

$200 a phone? more like 450-600. apple does not give subsidies to the carriers.

[NoCleverSNForMe]

Originally Posted by peteo

Why would'nt you walk into a walmart and get strait talk for your iPhone. $45 a month unlimited talk,text, internet. It runs on at&t so you dont even need an unlocked iPhone.

----------



$200 a phone? more like 450-600. apple does not give subsidies to the carriers.

Two things:

1) He/she is right. It is $449, 549, and 649.

2) I bought a 649 iPhone 5 from Wal Mart for Straight Talk, and it runs on Verizon. What you may be thinking of is the "Bring your own Phone" program, which runs on AT&T and T-Mobile. The one inside Wal-Marts are running Verizon, which I think is better for my area.

[Giuly]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

the Lumia's are somewhat interesting

I hate to say this about a Windows product, but yup.

Give the proles filet mignon and they'll demand Burger King. This is the crowd that's happy with $49 Android phones running Froyo.

If you had filet mignons over the last four weeks every day, no, you won't demand a Whooper, because you can't even look at beef anymore. But a bucket of hot wings. With coleslaw. And mashed potatoes with gravy. And corn on the cob. And biscuits. And a physician.
Either that, or start serving champagne and caviar.

Those Froyo devices for $49 are rather a cup from the local soup kitchen than a Whopper, though. 50MB of application data and you can't move preinstalled apps or their data to the SD, so you end up constantly resetting app data, and if you fail to do that right on time, you'll have to reset the whole phone because it won't boot anymore. They're serious crap.

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

I like my iPhone 5...BUT. It is starting to feel stale. Meanwhile, Samsung keeps pushing the envelope with the Galaxy series (Note, S3)....the Lumia's are somewhat interesting, and I'm also curious to check out what the new Blackberry has to offer. I'm not surprised by this type of news, there is a lot of great competition out there now, and we as consumers (not fanboys) all benefit.

EDIT: and yes, who the F is cricket?

Fanboys benefit too whether they like to admit it or not. When Apple is driven to innovate great things happen. When Apple is on top of the world they become stale. The iDevice craze is just Macintosh 2.0. Apple stopped innovating then, fell down a slope, then exploding with great new products.

[GuitarDTO]

Originally Posted by el-John-o

Fanboys benefit too whether they like to admit it or not. When Apple is driven to innovate great things happen. When Apple is on top of the world they become stale. The iDevice craze is just Macintosh 2.0. Apple stopped innovating then, fell down a slope, then exploding with great new products.

Agreed, although in this case I'm not sure how much more innovation there is to be had with phones, other than just expanding on consumers personal preferences? Apple is no doubt working hard on coming out with the next "iPhone" type disruption in other industries, but those types of shifts don't happen too often. I think Apple will continue to sell phones well, but the competition will also do well and will take market share away from Apple, but they'll still always have a nice chunk of the market.

I'm more curious to know what will happen when phones have the power of running full blown PC/Mac applications and what the setup/interface to do that will be. Imagine all your professional type apps on your mobile device with you at all times. I believe that's when we'll see larger innovations again in the mobile market, when the computing power gets to that point. Could be sooner rather than later but who knows.

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by GuitarDTO

Agreed, although in this case I'm not sure how much more innovation there is to be had with phones, other than just expanding on consumers personal preferences? Apple is no doubt working hard on coming out with the next "iPhone" type disruption in other industries, but those types of shifts don't happen too often. I think Apple will continue to sell phones well, but the competition will also do well and will take market share away from Apple, but they'll still always have a nice chunk of the market.

I'm more curious to know what will happen when phones have the power of running full blown PC/Mac applications and what the setup/interface to do that will be. Imagine all your professional type apps on your mobile device with you at all times. I believe that's when we'll see larger innovations again in the mobile market, when the computing power gets to that point. Could be sooner rather than later but who knows.

Well that's where innovation comes in. If it was an established technology and a universally desired feature, it becomes 'competing', like adding LTE. Like Henry Ford said and Steve Jobs loved to quote; "If I asked my customers what they wanted, they'd tell me 'a faster horse!'". What made/makes Apple great, is innovating in ways that are incredibly simple and make perfect sense, yet nobody else was doing or even thinking about. A great example IS the iPhone. Others accepted conventional technology that on screen keyboards and anything other than a plastic keyboard doesn't work. Apple completely re-wrote the smartphone genre, but in actuality they didn't do that much, they just made some simple innovations. Ones most in the technology world would list the limitations of before even thinking about developing, whereas Apple was seeking to conquer the limitations.

I'm a consumer, not an engineer. It's not my job to know what the next big thing is, it's the engineers at Apple, Samsung, Google, HTC, etc., to show me what it is and compete for my money!

I mean sure the iPhone could have NFC or a faster CPU or curved glass or any number of features. But that's just features, that's just keeping up with the joneses. When I say I want to see innovation at Apple (or Samsung, or whoever! I don't think ANYONE is really doing it right now), I mean brand new things, not stuff we've been talking about for 5 years.

[Ryth]

Originally Posted by el-John-o

Well that's where innovation comes in. If it was an established technology and a universally desired feature, it becomes 'competing', like adding LTE. Like Henry Ford said and Steve Jobs loved to quote; "If I asked my customers what they wanted, they'd tell me 'a faster horse!'". What made/makes Apple great, is innovating in ways that are incredibly simple and make perfect sense, yet nobody else was doing or even thinking about. A great example IS the iPhone. Others accepted conventional technology that on screen keyboards and anything other than a plastic keyboard doesn't work. Apple completely re-wrote the smartphone genre, but in actuality they didn't do that much, they just made some simple innovations. Ones most in the technology world would list the limitations of before even thinking about developing, whereas Apple was seeking to conquer the limitations.

I'm a consumer, not an engineer. It's not my job to know what the next big thing is, it's the engineers at Apple, Samsung, Google, HTC, etc., to show me what it is and compete for my money!

I mean sure the iPhone could have NFC or a faster CPU or curved glass or any number of features. But that's just features, that's just keeping up with the joneses. When I say I want to see innovation at Apple (or Samsung, or whoever! I don't think ANYONE is really doing it right now), I mean brand new things, not stuff we've been talking about for 5 years.

The thing is Samsung isn't innovating. All they are doing is up'ing hardware specs and increasing screen size.

I think Apple is already on to the next big thing which is the 'personal communication device'...in that iWatch which will most likely tie in with their rest of their devices and eco system.