Wireless carrier Sprint is aiming to reboot itself in the telecommunications sector in the United States, and CEO Marcelo Claure believes the company's top priority needs to be "very disruptive" rate plans.
Sprint will begin next week lowering its prices in an effort to garner more subscribers to its services, he says.
Claure held a companywide conference call that detailed Sprint's new direction, and the lowering of prices is project No. 1 for the new CEO. The move comes as Sprint has seen its position atop the prepaid wireless service fall slightly, allowing T-Mobile to overtake the company.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere says his company will pass Sprint this year to become the country's third-largest carrier by subscription, putting Sprint on the defensive.
T-Mobile is also claiming that it has become the top prepaid wireless company in the country, with over 15.64 million users, Tech Times reports. That is slightly more than the reported 15.19 million that Sprint currently boasts.
"I predict the #uncarrier will overtake @Sprint in total customers by the end of the year! There, I said it!," tweeted Legere.
Even as Claure said the company is lagging behind other operators in network quality, which the company is attempting to rectify by upgrading its coverage and speed, he believes that Sprint can be competitive in the national market by lowering its prices.
Claure argued the new rates would be "simple and attractive," although he did not give further details over the specifics of what Sprint is planning. Beyond pricing, Sprint also aims to spend time on its large-spectrum holdings as it attempts to improve its network and lower operational costs, which Claure said would lead to more potential job losses at the company.
"In the short term, we will focus on becoming extremely cost efficient and competing aggressively in the marketplace. While consolidating makes sense in the long term, for now, we will focus on growing and repositioning Sprint," Claure said in a statement.
The statement also comes after SoftBank, Sprint's parent company, ended its attempts to take over T-Mobile.
Sprint's purchase of T-Mobile would drive down costs as competition in the mobvile sector increased, said SoftBank CEO and Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son. However, concerns over whether U.S. government regulators would approve the deal sidelined it. Sprint did say it would continue to look into a potential deal with T-Mobile down the road.
