The iPhone 7 is one of the most highly anticipated smartphones of this year and carriers are already scrambling to come up with aggressive promotions.
Every time a new, high-end flagship smartphone hits the scene, various carriers and retailers offer a slew of attractive deals, bundles and promos to convince customers to buy from them and not the competition.
We've already seen it happen with the flagships launched this year, such as the Galaxy S7 / S7 edge, the HTC 10 and others, and Apple's next-generation smartphones will similarly prompt exciting offers.
AT&T has been on a downward spiral for a while now when it comes to drawing profits from postpaid subscribers, and it continues to lose ground to T-Mobile. Users who switched carriers made up nearly half of T-Mobile's new phone activations in the first quarter of this year, while AT&T seems to be having trouble retaining its customers and attracting new ones.
To turn things around, the second largest U.S. carrier is apparently banking on deals and promotions to offer more incentives to prospective customers. It's already covering more smartphones than ever with its BOGO deals, and it will be "loading the cannons" this fall when the new iPhone hits the scene.
Nomura Securities analyst Jeffrey Kvaal says AT&T will go all out to better compete against T-Mobile, and "strong promotions" will be in store even for the iPhone 7. Apple's iPhones don't usually get many deals and discounts like Android smartphones do, but AT&T may be ready to change that.
Moreover, the carrier will reportedly offer plans that bundle its web TV streaming service thanks to its DirecTV acquisition. The bundles should include DirecTV's NFL Sunday ticket, says the analyst.
"We believe AT&T is loading the cannons to defend a slightly lower-tier slice of its mobile subscriber base," Kvaal notes. "We expect strong second-half promotions across mobile and DTV, including Sunday Ticket, DTVNow and the new Apple iPhone."
The postpaid customers AT&T is losing to T-Mobile are reportedly part of the low-tier spenders, so AT&T plans to bet big on the top-tier spenders to turn things around. The upcoming promotions should cater to the high-end, and Nomura expects AT&T to add roughly 550,000 postpaid customers in the third quarter, followed by an additional 510,000 customers during the fourth quarter. The latter wave will reportedly include tablet users as well.
It remains to be seen how things will pan out for AT&T, but one thing's for sure. The iPhone 7 hype is growing and carriers are already anticipating high demand.
