One of the most horrifying statistics for any wireless company is the “churn rate” -- that is, how many customers jump ship and move their service to a competitor. While it’s widely believed that Sprint and T-Mobile have suffered mercilessly from the iPhone onslaught, the reality may be it’s not so bad after all.
Cult of Mac is reporting that only 10 percent of U.S. T-Mobile customers leave the carrier for the iPhone. The statistic was revealed by CEO Philipp Humm on Thursday, during a presentation to investors in New York.
“According to Humm, the churn rate -- or number of contract customers lost per month -- is sitting at two percent right now,” Cult of Mac reported. “Of that two percent leaving the network, a full ten percent are because customers want the iPhone.”
Humm claims that T-Mobile will combat the problem by launching a line of Android smartphones with a price tag under $100 and data plans that start at a mere $10 per month -- which doesn’t give much confidence that the fourth-place U.S. carrier will be landing the iPhone anytime soon.
Ironically, overseas T-Mobile was an early partner for Apple’s coveted handset, where it was among the first carriers in Europe to offer the iPhone.
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(Image courtesy of Cult of Mac)
jscotta
January 25, 2011 at 1:15pm
The churn problem will get worse now that Verizon has the iPhone. When it was an AT&T exclusive, many people would not get an iPhone just because of the carrier. So…while Verizon may or may not be any better than AT&T, there are people at Sprint, T-Mobile, and a host of smaller carriers (e.g. Cellular South) that will probably see an increased iPhone churn rate because of the non-AT&T option.
