[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/virgin-mobile-gets-iphone-549-30-per-month-123259484--finance.html[/URL]
[QUOTE]NEW YORK (AP) — Virgin Mobile USA, one of Sprint's brands for prepaid, no-contract phone service, said Thursday it will start selling the iPhone on June 29, charging $549 for a basic model.
The high price of the phone comes with an upside: service will start at $30 per month.
[B]That means the phone, plus two years of service, will cost $1,269, excluding taxes.[/B] That's nearly $800 less than a subscriber would pay for the same
phone, an iPhone 4 with 8 gigabytes of memory, if buying it under the Sprint Nextel Corp. brand. Sprint charges $100 for the phone and $80 per month
for service, excluding taxes.
The iPhone has until recently been restricted to contract-based plans. Now, the floodgates appear open for the phone to enter the prepaid, no-
contract market, which is aimed at people with low incomes and poor credit. However, the high initial cost of the phone is likely to be an obstacle.
Virgin Mobile sells other smartphones for as little as $80.
Last week, Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket prepaid service, said it would start selling the phone on June 22, starting at
$400 and $55 per month. Leap's CEO said the phone would likely account for about 10 percent of the phones it sells over the next few years.
For Apple Inc., the maker of the phone, expanding sales to the no-contract segment means a chance to reach buyers who don't have the credit for
contract-based plans, or don't want to be tied down with contracts. The number of people on contract-based plans has plateaued, and actually
contracted for the first time in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the number of people on no-contract plans is still growing.
In addition to the iPhone 4, Virgin Mobile USA will sell the iPhone 4S, the model launched last year, for $649 with 16 gigabytes of memory.
Virgin Mobile's cheapest plan cost $35 per month, with a $5 discount possible for buyers who set up automatic monthly payment with a credit card,
debit card or PayPal account. It provides 300 minutes of calling per month and unlimited texting. Data usage is also "unlimited," but is slowed
drastically after the customer has used 2.5 gigabytes since the start of the billing cycle. IPhones with "Sprint" service have true unlimited data.
Virgin Mobile just introduced its first "4G" phone, the $300 HTC Evo V 4G, which can use Clearwire Corp.'s data network in addition to Sprint's. The
iPhone, on the other hand, is limited to Sprint's "3G," or third-generation network, which is slower than those of the big iPhone sellers: AT&T Inc. and
Verizon Wireless.
Sprint started selling the iPhone last fall, after its two bigger competitors. Sprint said the iPhones it buys from Apple for Virgin Mobile will count toward
its commitment to buy $15.5 billion worth of phones over three years. That's a big and risky undertaking for Sprint, which is in a precarious financial
position. The company also said it doesn't expect Virgin Mobile's iPhone sales to materially affect its 2012 operating income before depreciation and
amortization.
Sprint shares rose 7 cents to $2.79 in early trading.
Sprint, which is based Overland Park, Kan., doesn't say how many subscribers Virgin Mobile has. Sprint over all has 15.3 million subscribers on no-
contract plans, under the Virgin, Boost and Assurance Wireless brands. It has 32.8 million subscribers on Sprint and Nextel contract-based plans.
[/QUOTE]
I prefer paying forty bucks and using my shitty tracfone for a year, rather than shelling out upwards of $1,000 dollars for a hipster's phone.
But apparently, that's just me.
I have an AT&T iPhone... can I just get a Virgin Mobile sim?
How is an iPhone a hipster phone if fucking everybody has one.
No fucking joke, I go to the mall, EVERY FUCKING PERSON I see has an iPhone (with the occasional android).
it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.
I find it amusing that paying an overall cost of $1,200 bi-annually for a mobile smartphone is considered affordable and/or cheap
I'd get a smart phone if it wasn't for the fact that they are grossly over-valued, but people are willing to pay for the conveience and popularity of internet-everywhere so much, to pay well over $1,000 over the period of two-years (even more the longer you keep it) on a what is basically a small cheap hand-held computer with a nice screen.
Granted I know other smart phones/companies go cheaper, but it is still funny to me. I'm pretty internet-connected, love tech, etc, but I'd still much rather pay $75 a year to use a tracfone regularly for calls/texts, than invest nearly $700 a year for the same thing, but with the added convienece of having it look flashy and browse the net even more than I already do wherever I go.
Instead of getting a 2 year contract phone I could go on a goddamn cruise for 2 weeks or a roadtrip for a month.
I know I'm in the minority though - and I don't deny the convenience of having such a device. I'd just only pay $20-$25 a month at the most for such a luxury and no more than $250 for the actual device to do it (and not have said device be total shit). And even then I'd consider it an expensive luxury.
[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;36267815]How is an iPhone a hipster phone if fucking everybody has one.
No fucking joke, I go to the mall, EVERY FUCKING PERSON I see has an iPhone (with the occasional android).[/QUOTE]
I can confirm this. Many individuals have an iPhone where I'm around. This is most common amongst the fobs.
[QUOTE=KorJax;36267921]I find it amusing that paying an overall cost of $1,200 bi-annually for a mobile smartphone is considered affordable and/or cheap
[/QUOTE]
My smartphone plan costs me 1230$ ANNUALLY, Bi-annually would be cheap to me.
[QUOTE=Funcoot;36267765]I have an AT&T iPhone... can I just get a Virgin Mobile sim?[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure Virgin in the US is CDMA, and therefore does not use sim cards.
i know people that use food stamps that have iphones its not a "hipster phone" ffs
Honestly, even though I dislike the iPhone, prepaid planes are the way to go, and I think it's cool to see carriers like virgin mobile stepping up to the plate and getting some nice phones, like the HTC Evo, and the Optimus Elite.
[QUOTE=GhostSonic;36267980]I'm pretty sure Virgin in the US is CDMA, and therefore does not use sim cards.[/QUOTE]
Damnit.
hah, my smartphone costs me 5 bucks a month for 2 years, no initial cost.
[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;36267815]How is an iPhone a hipster phone if fucking everybody has one.
No fucking joke, I go to the mall, EVERY FUCKING PERSON I see has an iPhone (with the occasional android).[/QUOTE]
I've seen more galaxy notes than iPhones around where I live.
EDIT :
A dumb observation? Wow, the iTards are mad.
I had Virgin Mobile once, the service was terrible. They rent Sprint network space and are clearly a low priority on it. The damn thing wouldn't even work with line-of-sight on the local Sprint tower.
For anyone that cares this is the full breakdown across all US carriers that have a iPhone
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Other/prices.PNG[/img]
[QUOTE=MightyMax;36267828]it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.[/QUOTE]
whats your point
[QUOTE=MightyMax;36267828]it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.[/QUOTE]
So does any other smartphone on the market.
[QUOTE=inconspicious;36273012]I've seen more galaxy notes than iPhone around where I live.[/QUOTE]
I've only seen a couple iPhones, it all depends on where you live.
my contract costs about £185 per year, so about $285, with unlimited data
hurray
[editline]10th June 2012[/editline]
i guess it doesn't quite count since i bought my phone separately, sim free, but it was only £200
Damn, I didn't know owning an iPhone was so expensive. I'd never spend that much for a phone, even if I used it regularly. Currently I have an old Nokia with a prepaid sim and I don't even spend 10$/year for it.
You people in the USA are so unlucky, here we don't have a contract or anything, we just buy a phone.
That's all. Maybe phone costs more, but it clearly pays off in the long run, according to that article.
I still don't get how people are prepared to spend 600€ on a phone. Imagine carrying 600€ on you at all times.
[QUOTE=MightyMax;36267828]it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.[/QUOTE]
It costs less than 100 bucks to make AND pay the entire sweatshop, silly.
[QUOTE=MightyMax;36267828]it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.[/QUOTE]
Iphone 4S's Bill of Materials is $188
[QUOTE=MightyMax;36267828]it costs less than 100 bucks to MAKE an iphone.[/QUOTE]
There's Apple for ya.
And here I am with a shitty Nokia 5228 and I get by real nice.
[QUOTE=Chinook249;36275095]There's Apple for ya.[/QUOTE]
And almost every other company in the world. Of course companies are going to sell a product for a higher cost than it takes to make. For example, a Nintendo 3ds costed 100$ to make, but Nintendo sold it for 250$. I don't see why you're trying to single out Apple here. Literally every smartphone maker does this.
You're forgetting that manufacturing costs are not the only costs that come into device price.
Designing the device costs money, writing software for it costs money. So does servicing and supporting them after release. You need to pay all your workers and also need to profit yourself. Sure apple products are overpriced, but saying that manufacturing of a device much cheaper compared to the retail price is stupid.
I got a Galaxy S2 on contract with Virgin Mobile UK about six months ago on contract, £28 ($43.29) a month with the hand set free, and costs £672 overall ($1038.84). Buying the phone outright from them would have cost about £450 ($695.65), so I figure I did pretty well out of it as I used to spend about a tenner a month on my old pay-as-you-go simcard anyway.
Of course, you can get it fairly cheap anywhere thanks to release of the S3, but oh well, I like the phone. It'll be interesting to see if the iPhone reaches Virgin Mobile UK though.
[QUOTE=Political Gamer;36273121]For anyone that cares this is the full breakdown across all US carriers that have a iPhone
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Other/prices.PNG[/img][/QUOTE]
AT&T's customer support is the shittiest out of them all.
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