With Apple products officially coming to T-Mobile USA in 2013, one analyst has projected that the deal will add nearly 5 million sales for the Cupertino California company. In a recent investors note, Amit Daryanani with RBC Capital Markets said that with about 33 million subscribers on T-Mobile, Apple could sell roughly 4.8 million iPhones in the first year.
Daryanani pointed out that Sprint, which is the third-largest carrier in America, sold 6.3 million iPhones in the first year of availability. That represented about 20% of the total number of postpaid subscribers at Sprint. Of T-Mobile’s 33 million subscribers, 70% are said to be postpaid, which means Apple can target roughly 24 million postpaid subscribers.
With the assumption that the same 20% of people buy an iPhone that did so on Sprint, this puts Apple in line to sell roughly 4.8 million units in the first year. The addition of T-Mobile USA as an official carrier partner will net Apple roughly 4 to 5 million more iPhone sales overall. He assumes that iPhones sold to T-Mobile customers would have an average selling price of roughly $600 and gross margins around 50%, which would be adding more than 60 cents to RBC’s projected $50 earning-per-share estimate for Apple’s fiscal year 2013.
According to GigaOm, the iPhone experience on T-Mobile will involve unsubsidized “Value Plans” which will feature cheaper rates for voices and data but will require customers to pay a larger upfront cost to buy a new phone. This trend already seems to be apparent among T-Mobile users as 80% of them opted for Value Plans last quarter. Another interesting tidbit which was implied by T-Mobile CEO, John Legere, was that the company will lessen the burden on customers by offering a monthly finance plan, charging a flat sum up front and then a monthly fee thereafter to pay off the device in installments.
Such a move seems to bode well not only for T-Mobile, which has been struggling trying to obtain the iPhone in the past, but also for Apple, which will hopefully bounce back up from a recent stock price decrease. RBC Capital Markets has maintained its "outperform" rating for AAPL stock with a price target of $750 as a result.
Source: GigaOm via AppleInsider
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