At the end of last year I wrote Why Sprint is Losing Customers (and market share). The post detailed how I felt Sprint was providing the wrong kinds of incentive for their business to be successful. The post actually got talked about on a few finance sites as Sprint’s stock continued to fall throughout Q1 2008.
Now we get more bad news just as Sprint’s stock has started to rebound (a result of the unlimited minutes/internet plan?). According to Engadget, Sprint lost 1.09 million customers during Q1 2008. I was two of those customers (family plan). If I am reading this correctly that is about 2% of their subscribers. That seems like a pretty big exodus for a recurring revenue business.
In a world where more and more people feel their cellphones are a bigger part of their identity than their cars or houses, Sprint is not going to be able to win with “me too” devices. I do like their unlimited everything plan. Still, I think Sprint still has the strategy to win new customers instead of keeping the ones they already have, and as Early Termination Fees go away that will prove to be a losing strategy.
