{"id":603976,"date":"2009-10-29T09:37:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T13:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=77480"},"modified":"2009-10-29T09:37:36","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T13:37:36","slug":"did-sprint-bet-on-the-wrong-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/603976","title":{"rendered":"Did Sprint Bet On the Wrong Smartphone?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='snap_preview'><p><a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/02\/logo_business-wire-logojpg.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-11643\" title=\"Sprint Logo\" src=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/02\/logo_business-wire-logojpg.jpg?w=108&#038;h=70&#038;fit=108%2C70&#038;resize=108%2C70\" alt=\"Sprint Logo\" width=\"108\" height=\"70\" \/><\/a>As lovely as the Pre is, <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/09\/18\/palm-kills-winmo-as-pre-loses-momentum\/\">it&#8217;s no iPhone<\/a>, as Sprint&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/newsreleases.sprint.com\/phoenix.zhtml?c=127149&amp;p=irol-newsArticle_newsroom&amp;ID=1348150\">third-quarter loss<\/a> and the departure of 545,000 total subscribers proves. The nation&#8217;s third-largest wireless carrier, despite having an exclusive on the Pre, saw an exodus of 801,000 contract-holding customers in the latest three-month period, but offset that by adding 666,000 pre-paid subscribers. It now has a total of 48.3 million subscribers. Sprint is enlarging its prepaid business with <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/07\/28\/sprint-aims-to-boost-prepaid-business-with-virgin-mobile-usa-buy\/\">an acquisition<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fiercewireless.com\/story\/boost-mobiles-matt-carter-says-50-rate-plan-isnt-causing-price-war\/2009-03-09\">competitive rate plans<\/a> as a way to ensure that contract customers who leave for pre-paid plans still have a place in the Sprint family, but so far its bet on the Pre and pre-paid hasn&#8217;t pushed it back into the black.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?w=780\" \/><\/div><hr \/><br \/><a href='http:\/\/ads.gigaom.com\/proxy.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fads.gigaom.com%2Fopenx%2Fwww%2Fdelivery%2Fck.php%3Foaparams%3D2__bannerid%3D154__zoneid%3D1__cb%3D1403c559a4__oadest%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fostatic.com%252Fsponsored%252Fconcentric' ><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ads.gigaom.com\/openx\/www\/images\/1b20b30bace333f83c85c4be1366923a.gif?resize=300%2C100\" width=\"300\" height=\"100\" alt='' title='' border='0' \/><\/a><div id='beacon_1403c559a4' style='position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; visibility: hidden;'><img src='http:\/\/ads.gigaom.com\/openx\/www\/delivery\/lg.php?bannerid=154&amp;campaignid=12&amp;zoneid=1&amp;loc=http%3A%2F%2Fads.gigaom.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fgigaom.com%252Ffeed%252F%253Fnoredirect%253D1&amp;cb=1403c559a4' width='0' height='0' alt='' style='width: 0px; height: 0px;' \/><\/div><div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=kJ4JQsLgTFI:sLdTUUTpZUQ:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/OmMalik\/~4\/kJ4JQsLgTFI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As lovely as the Pre is, it&#8217;s no iPhone, as Sprint&#8217;s third-quarter loss and the departure of 545,000 total subscribers proves. The nation&#8217;s third-largest wireless carrier, despite having an exclusive on the Pre, saw an exodus of 801,000 contract-holding customers in the latest three-month period, but offset that by adding 666,000 pre-paid subscribers. It now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12070,4821,12075],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-news","category-telecom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2x7y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}