Sprint to Offer Wireless at Half Price of Rivals

Sprint Corp. took a swing in the wireless price war Wednesday, offering to sell wireless service at half the price of rivals, a move that shows the urgency the carrier feels to grow its subscriber base.

Until Jan. 7, any customer who switches to Sprint will be able to pay half price of the plans currently offered by their existing carrier, and Sprint will cover up to $650 in switching costs. For its own customers, Sprint is offering a free tablet and a free year of data service for signing a two-year contract.

Sprint Chief Executive Marcelo Claure said the aggressive offer demonstrates the confidence the company has in its improved network. The carrier says 77 U.S. markets are now covered by faster connections, which the carrier has dubbed "LTE Plus."

"Our network has come a long, long way," Mr. Claure said. "It has never performed better than it's performing today."

But the deal comes at a vulnerable time for Sprint, which has lost millions of customers in the last few years as it overhauled its wireless network. This year the carrier is burning through cash and is in the midst of a $2.5 billion cost-cutting program. In the most recent quarter, it lost $585 million while revenue fell 6%.

It is the latest promotion to drive down pricing as the country's biggest wireless carriers struggle to find new growth in a saturated market. Shares of the company fell more than 8% in recent trading to $4.04. The stock is down 2.7% so far this year ​

Sprint's network quality has improved after a major overhaul, slowing customer defections significantly. In the recent quarter, it added 237,000 of the most lucrative postpaid phone customers, but most of those additions had been customers on one of Sprint's prepaid brands.

The promotion comes a week after T-Mobile said it would allow customers free, unlimited streaming of low-quality video from two dozen apps. Sprint said its half-price offer won't include those unlimited features, and it also won't offer half price on T-Mobile's $95 unlimited data plan.

The offer means Sprint will have to keep track of the rate plans for its rivals, which could make things complicated for employees at its several thousand retail locations. Mr. Claure said the new plan would actually make things easier for retail sales staff because his competitors' wireless plans have gotten more simple.

A year ago, Sprint launched a similar promotion that offered half price wireless service to people switching from the nation's two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon. In that deal, Sprint charged half the monthly service price of what customers were currently paying, resulting in thousands of different billing combinations the carrier had to manage.

The new deal doesn't take into account what customers are currently paying—it is just half price of what other carriers are currently selling. Customers who switch can only choose from plans offered by their current carrier. For instance, a Verizon customer can choose to pay half price for any current Verizon plan, but not T-Mobile plans. Customers get the pricing until January 2017.

Write to Ryan Knutson at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 18, 2015 16:25 ET (21:25 GMT)

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