Sprint: Evo 4G may stop iPhone "trauma"
updated 01:10 pm EDT, Thu June 10, 2010
Sprint CFO thins Android stems customer losses
The Evo 4G could be the first phone on Sprint to stop waves of subscriber losses as customers jump ship to the iPhone, the company's CFO Robert Brust said at an investor's conference late Wednesday. He hoped the Android phone would make sure Sprint "won't lose as many" customers and cast it as the first true iPhone rival the network has had. Brust was unusually derogatory towards the Palm Pre and saw it as a device to settle for instead of an iPhone rather than an active choice customers could make as an alternative.
"The Pre was for people who didn't really want the iPhone," the executive said at the conference. "But the Evo is a phone that people can get instead of the iPhone. We were in the distance last year and now we're catching up."
He added that all carriers outside of AT&T have had to brace themselves for a "little trauma called 'iPhone introduction.'" Each new launch in the summer usually triggers a rash of customer defections to AT&T, and many others out of the cycle leave once their contracts end. Most of Sprint's customer turnover has come from subscription customers on its core CDMA business where an influx of prepaid customers has been hiding some of the impact.
The CFO didn't provide any additional color for Sprint's Evo 4G sales rate but did observe that sales were strong even in areas where 4G wasn't available, a sign that customers were willing to take on the extra $10 per month whether or not WiMAX was around. Sustained sellouts have defined the HTC phone so far, but Sprint recently had to scale back its claims as it found that the Evo 4G hadn't sold nearly as well originally claimed. [via CNET]
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"But the Evo is a phone that people can get instead of the iPhone."
Almost like the Ford F-150 pickup truck is for people who don't want a BMW 5 Series sedan. In a world where the Ford and the BMW cost the same to operate. I doubt Sprint and AT&T are very much different in voice + data pricing.
Eventually Sprint will be able to sell iPhones. Android has until then to try to build market share with their 2-for-1 fire sales.
And, by then, all the apps Android users have purchased will be obsolete. Google has stated that Chrome OS is the way of the future. And on Chrome OS, all apps are web apps. So goodbye native Android Market apps. (There's a reason why Google has done such a poor job with Android Market - they don't want it to succeed anyway.)
And guess what you'll be getting along with all the new web apps on Chrome OS. Here's a hint: AdMob. That's right, plenty of ads. Google can't make money by giving Android to their hardware partners. They make money selling web ads. That's why Google is in panic defense mode now.
Apple cut Google out of any revenue they could have gotten through cheesy ads in Apple's App store apps. And that hurts, because there are 100 million iOS devices out there, and that number is growing by millions every month.