In a new offer posted on its Website Sept. 8, Sprint Nextel is offering a special $100 rebate for those looking to buy a Palm Pre smartphone. The Sprint offer is good through Oct. 31 for first-time Pre buyers and part of the deal requires customers to transfer their telephone number from another wireless carrier to Sprint.
Sprint Nextel is looking to entice first-time
Palm
Pre buyers with an extra $100 rebate.
In Sept. 8 posting on its Website, Sprint announced
the special deal for the Palm Pre, which runs from now until Oct. 31. The $100
rebate is only for first-time buyers of the Pre smartphone and not for existing
customers. In addition, the offer requires customers to move their current
telephone number from their current wireless carrier to the Sprint network.
This is the official announcement
Sprint posted on its Website:
"Until October 10, 2009 you can get a $100 service
credit when you move your number to a Palm Pre from Sprint and activate a new
line of service with a two-year agreement. The $100 service credit will be
applied to your Sprint account within three invoices. The service credit will
not display in the shopping cart at checkout. This offer is available now but
can't be combined with other Pre discounts, rebates or offers."
(The official offer also has a number of other rules
governing the rebate. For instance, while the official offer ends by Oct. 10,
Sprint mentions that the deal requires purchase and activation by Oct. 31.)
Right now,
the
Palm Pre smartphone sells for $199 with the existing Sprint rebates.
According to the Sprint Website, the Pre costs $549.99. With a two-year
contract, Sprint offers a $250.00 instant rebate and then a $100 mail-in
rebate. Now, the new, limited rebate brings the Pre price down to $99.
While the Palm Pre, along with the Palm webOS, has
attracted a number of accolades for its design and features, there has been a
debate about the smartphone's impact on Sprint, which remains the only wireless
carrier for the Pre, and the company's bottom line.
Did Sprint offer the rebate to sell more phones or
does it need to keep attracting new customers who might be holding out?
In July,
Sprint
posted a second-quarter financial loss despite the large marketing campaign
that accompanied the launch of the Pre. However, executives said the June launch
of the Palm Pre remains Sprint's single greatest launch in company history.
How much longer Sprint has exclusive right to the
Pre is a matter of debate. In June,
a
Verizon Wireless executive said that the company expects to offer the Pre on
its network by 2010.
Sprint is not the only wireless carrier to offer a new
rebate on a smartphone lately. On Aug. 31,
Verizon
cut the cost of the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm to $50. That move by
Verizon is expected to clear the way for the introduction of the Storm 2.
At the same time, Sprint is looking to attract new
customers with other smartphones besides the Palm Pre. On Oct. 11,
Sprint
plans to offers its first device based on the Google Android operating system.
The HTC Hero smartphone is priced at $179.99 with rebates and a two-year
contract.
Email
Print
