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The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take). The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (t
by schraeds 15y ago
The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take).
The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (thus the Apple unlocked price of $600+ for unsubsidized phones).
15% of contract value to subsidize the hardware doesn't seem that bad. I wonder how much cable companies pay for set-top boxes, Vonage with free VOIP adapters, etc.
- mediocre_coder 15y agoI worked on digital set-top boxes about 10 years ago, at which point they cost ~ $800 per unit. I'm sure that's declined to $2-300 by now, but cable co's were recouping at $800/unit with expected lifespans of ~ 5 years.
- just_browsing 15y agoDigital STBs were around $800 a decade ago, and have probably declined to a couple hundred dollars at this point. The cable companies didn't have any trouble recouping on them, they just tied the high end boxes to high-end plans (e.g. HD only, back in the early 2000s when not everyone had HD). It strikes me as remarkably parallel to how the phone companies are handling smartphones today, bundling them with premium-level services.