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T-Mobile USA's iPhone 5 Sales Hit 500,000 Units

The fact a single device access flips their declining sales trends is interesting of course, but remember it was the Justice department that ruled (really just decided with no actual law, regulation, or rule, just an opinion) T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't merge. That resulted in a significant business disruption for T-Mobile, and a $4B cash payment from AT&T. I believe we are the only country with an anti-trust law that is so harsh.

Good for them for the massive build out they have been embarking on and the tremendous success of the roll out of the iPhone for the first time. All despite the government.

Rocketman
 
Huh, I thought for sure after hearing many folks complain about VZ, AT&T, and Sprint that T-mobile would have sold more and had more customers jumping ships?

The few folks I spoke to in my area tried T-Mob but then went back to AT&T or VZ because they could not get service?

I think the uncarrier thing is good and hope it hits AT&T, would love to see my bill cut by 30-40% and since I really am not in an LTE area, I am ok with solid 4G.
 
A product becomes obsolete in Apple's eye's 5 - 7 years after it stops being sold. Perhaps you meant it becomes obsolete in your eyes?

When the iPhone 6 comes out, the iPhone 5 and 5s will be sold and supported alongside it. Much the same way that the iPhone 4 and 4s are being sold today, and by last count, are amongst the most popular iPhones



AppleMark said:
Why is that then?

Does the same go for those waiting on a new Mac Pro or MBA?

You make no allowance for the fact that any purchase of a phone so close to an update will tie many into a 2 year contract with a phone that will be 'obsolete' [in Apples eyes] when the iPhone 6 will arrive and be unable to upgrade within their current contract.
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jonAppleSeed said:
Honestly 500K seems low to me when the iPhone sells millions and millions of units a month.
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Not as many people (outside of techies and kids) know that the iPhone is at T-Mobile. All things considering I'd say that 500k in sales in such a short time is amazing since the current model is getting long in the tooth and the T-Mobile store is surrounded by Android phones that are larger than the iPhone. This just shows that not as many people are looking for that "Next BIG Thing" as Samsung wants people to believe.
 
I think this data mirrors our personal experience. We combined 2 different T-Mobile plans which meant that 4 of us are still on T-Mobile but paying less each month than we were before but we added a 5th person who wasn't on T-mobile. So they gained a customer but only gained about $5 a month overall. Out of the 5 of us 2 bought iPhone 5, 2 will wait for the 5s, one will wait for whenever (probably when his current phone dies).

I'm not sure if this model overall helps T-Mobile as much as it might hurt the other guys. They must surely lose some customers or lower their prices to compete (maybe not), but how can you not go with T-Mobile when each of us 5 is paying less than $30 per month for unlimited talk, text, and web (granted only the first 500 MB per line is fast but I only use about 200-300 per month anyway).

I guess if coverage in your area is horrible you'd shop elsewhere but everywhere I've traveled except Hana, in Maui I've had good enough to excellent coverage.
 
The most impressive thing about this is how much the iPhone is able effectively reverse a whole company's fortunes despite the fact that the 5 is over 6 months old now. Tmobile constantly complained that the lack of the iPhone was the top reason for their high churn rates and it looks like they were right. I'm pretty sure the iPhone 5 easily outsold every other device in the Tmobile lineup. So much for those complaining that the iPhone is doomed and everyone wants giant screens.

For those wondering why Tmobile didn't sell millions like AT&T and Verizon do, you have to remember that Tmobile has only 1/3 the customer base if AT&T and Verizon so it's not realistic to expect them to sell nearly as many iPhones. Even if it were a new launch.

What I'm interested to see now is how tmobiles launch sales will compare with the other 3 carriers when all 4 get the next iPhone at the same time. I wonder if they can sell more than Sprint.
 
jonAppleSeed said:
Honestly 500K seems low to me when the iPhone sells millions and millions of units a month.
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Collectively yes they sell millions a month across all the carriers it's available. 500,000 in less than a month at one carrier is not bad. Verizon sold around 1.3M iphones/month this past qtr and att a little more than that. Not bad considering tmobile is smaller than both of those.

And remember that's only the iPhone 5 that this report lists and this is less than a month of availability
 
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This is pretty great news for a couple of reasons.

1. Selling 500k units of a 6 month old device is telling. It tells you that A) Apple is not doomed and B) that there is demand for this new type of service/contract.

2. The other news that needs to be taken out of this is how much this affects Android. T-Mobile was the last sandbox of Android only in the USA. Now that Apple has entered that sandbox, it will be telling to see how much Android sales are down. With that, you will be able to somewhat extrapolate what will happen in other parts of the world because they use a similar no subsidized system like T-Mobile is.

I'd like T-Mobile to report not only what just happened with their iPhone sales, but also with their Android sales.
 
x86isslow said:
A product becomes obsolete in Apple's eye's 5 - 7 years after it stops being sold. Perhaps you meant it becomes obsolete in your eyes?
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Not at all. I am not referring to 'official Apple [abandonment of customer] policy', but reality.

Tried Apple maps, or turn by turn navigation on a 3GS lately? What about updates....? :eek:

The 3GS Phone was sold in the UK by major carriers from 2009 to 2012 and by your defintion of Apples policy not obsolete... yet cannot keep up with current smart phones :rolleyes:

My 'new' iPad 3 was 'updated' after I purchased it on release only 6 months afterwards, with some irrelevant speed bump and a new connector.

My 'Original iPhone has only been recently made 'officially' obsolete but has been so in reality for many years now, with no updates or supported App's.

So with respect, take your head out your backside take a look around and stop accepting what you are spoon fed.
 
jessica. said:
I think if you hang around this site and others like it then you can say "most" know. But the common person walking around has really no idea what is supposed to come this year. Most people look at the iPhone 5 and think about the fact that it is a phone that's been out for less than a year. To them, that is still quite new. I'm not surprised at all. An iPhone on T-Mobile has been in demand for a while.
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Exactly and there are thousands of people who buy a phone and never update it because they have no idea it can be updated. A few years ago you may remember that Apple stated that something like 25% of iPhone owners never once connected their iPhones to a computer to sync and backup.
 
nebrot said:
T-Mobile in Germany is absolutely rubbish! Too expensive for what you get and now even talking about cutting bandwidth back for internet...
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Romano81 said:
Unbelievable that T-Mobile / Telekom is in any way successful in the US.:confused:

Such a **** company here in germany. :mad:
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What do these statements have to do with T-Mobile USA? The vast majority of T-Mobile USA subscribers (or even Americans in general) will never have any dealings with any European T-Mobile subsidiary. Given that, why would their behavior in Europe color people's opinions of the company in the US?

Rocketman said:
The fact a single device access flips their declining sales trends is interesting of course, but remember it was the Justice department that ruled (really just decided with no actual law, regulation, or rule, just an opinion) T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't merge. That resulted in a significant business disruption for T-Mobile, and a $4B cash payment from AT&T. I believe we are the only country with an anti-trust law that is so harsh.

Good for them for the massive build out they have been embarking on and the tremendous success of the roll out of the iPhone for the first time. All despite the government.

Rocketman
Click to expand...

The $4B payment was not the result of any law. That resulted from the contract that AT&T signed with T-Mobile. It is, however, standard practice to include such a provision in the contract when one company agrees to buy another, but the deal then falls through for whatever reason. Look back to when United Airlines attempted to buy US Air. That deal fell through, not because the US government blocked it, but because of financial reasons. United had to pay US Air a large sum as well, and it eventually (along with other factors) drove United into bankruptcy.
 
Wicked1 said:
Huh, I thought for sure after hearing many folks complain about VZ, AT&T, and Sprint that T-mobile would have sold more and had more customers jumping ships?

The few folks I spoke to in my area tried T-Mob but then went back to AT&T or VZ because they could not get service?

I think the uncarrier thing is good and hope it hits AT&T, would love to see my bill cut by 30-40% and since I really am not in an LTE area, I am ok with solid 4G.
Click to expand...

I cancelled my Verizon account in January and my AT&T account in March. I opened T-Mobile accounts for all my devices (4S, 3GS, Nexus 4, Nexus 7) And will not be using anyone but T-Mobile. I finally have great data speeds wherever I go and especially at home.
 
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


As part of its first quarter earnings release today, T-Mobile USA revealed that its iPhone 5 sales stand at approximately 500,000 units less than a month after the device debuted on the carrier. The carrier also launched the iPhone 4 and 4S in limited markets where the devices are compatible with its networks, but T-Mobile did not specify how many units of those models it has sold.T-Mobile also announced that success with its Bring Your Own Device campaign continued during the first quarter, adding 100,000 iPhones per month from customers switching to the carrier even before it officially began offering the iPhone.

Comparing T-Mobile to other U.S. iPhone carrier launches, Sprint sold 1.8 million iPhones in its first quarter of availability in late 2011, although that debut took place within the context of the brand-new iPhone 4S launch. Earlier that year, Verizon activated 2.2 million iPhones in its first two months of availability.

Article Link: T-Mobile USA's iPhone 5 Sales Hit 500,000 Units
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500,000 for T-Mobile is a lot considering people were already using Jailbroken iPhones with T-Mobile. iPhone was totally new for Verizon and Sprint.
 
1080p said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuMSPxxqD14

I have seen this commercial about 20 times on TV since they got the iPhone and I don't watch much TV. People know about it.
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Sigh, but you're on an online forum and that automatically counts you as the usual techie. The average Joe doesn't sign on to tech forums. For the record, I'm a techie, visit MR and other tech sites daily and have never seen that commercial until you showed it to me. Also think about this, that's basically an iPhone commercial, to most people it's just another Apple ad and they've seen them all so many people may not watch the whole ad anyway. Who does?? That's exactly my point, it's not as many people as you think (outside of the techie world) that know the iPhone is at T-Mobile so 500k in sales in pretty darn great in such a short time. Also keep in mind there were probably a lot of T-Mobile customers that bought one after their contract ended.
 
HenryDJP said:
Sigh, but you're on an online forum and that automatically counts you as the usual techie. The average Joe doesn't sign on to tech forums. For the record, I'm a techie, visit MR and other tech sites daily and have never seen that commercial until you showed it to me. Also think about this, that's basically an iPhone commercial, to most people it's just another Apple ad and they've seen them all so many people may not watch the whole ad anyway. Who does?? That's exactly my point, it's not as many people as you think (outside of the techie world) that know the iPhone is at T-Mobile so 500k in sales in pretty darn great in such a short time.
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It's the normal poo pooing of Apple's success no matter what they do. The "Apple is doomed" and such like and such like.
 
jonAppleSeed said:
Honestly 500K seems low to me when the iPhone sells millions and millions of units a month.
Click to expand...

Remember that at T-Mobile, the iPhone is essentially unsubsidized. I think a half million units in a month is pretty impressive, considering customers had to fork over a lot more cash up front than with subsidizing carriers.
 
AppleMark said:
Why is that then?

Does the same go for those waiting on a new Mac Pro or MBA?

You make no allowance for the fact that any purchase of a phone so close to an update will tie many into a 2 year contract with a phone that will be 'obsolete' [in Apples eyes] when the iPhone 6 will arrive and be unable to upgrade within their current contract.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but not on t-mobile.
 
Rocketman said:
but remember it was the Justice department that ruled (really just decided with no actual law, regulation, or rule, just an opinion) T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't merge.
Click to expand...

What law school did you go to? Surely not one accredited by ABA.

The Justice Dept. didn't make any such ruling. It said it would seek to block the merger in court under the Clayton Act. It is the DOJs role under the Act (an actual law) to challenge, on behalf of the government, any merger it believes would lessen competition.

ATT did not want to endure a years long lawsuit so it called off the merger.
 
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