With a suffering job market and more households with unstable incomes, people are growing apprehensive towards signing long term phone contracts. For those who would prefer not to agree to such terms, two prepaid phone service carriers, Cricket and Virgin Mobile USA, are here to help. Not only are the companies providing this service, but they are now also offering no-contract iPhones as an available phone option.
The idea of marketing to customers who rather a more flexible agreement, is something even larger cellphone companies are beginning to do. Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless have joined the pool of cellphone providers who have adopted this marketing scheme.
Major carriers "are focusing on prepaid as a growth engine," John Weber, an analyst at a tech research firm IDC (hype) said to USA Today (hype). "It's not just for those who fail (a credit check). It's also for customers who want flexibility."
IDC predicts that the pre-paid market growth will be around 7.4 percent annually for at least four more years. This extends far beyond the estimates in post-paid market growth, which is 1.3 percent annually on average.
According to Recon Analytics (hype), a research firm, the amount of customers who have post-paid contracted phones dropped in the first few months of this year.
"We are now moving into a series of changes and there will be other premier devices. Having the right devices matters," says Doug Hutcheson, CEO of Leap Wireless.
Cricket will begin selling the 8GB iPhone on June 22. The phone will be sold for $399.99, and will entail a $55-per-month plan, including unlimited talk, text, and data. Virgin Mobile USA, plans to begin selling the phones on June 29. The phone will cost customers $529 and will entail a $30-per-month plan that includes data, text, and 300 phone minutes.
