T-Mobile's Plan to Disrupt the Wireless Industry: 10 Takeaways
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T-Mobile's future was looking bleak. While Verizon Wireless and AT&T grew their customer bases and revenues, T-Mobile had been (and still is) losing both. During the third quarter, it lost almost half a million postpaid subscribers. It had no iPhone customers to speak of, no 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in the near term. Its business plans had been essentially stalled during 2011 as AT&T tried to win regulatory approval to buy it. There have been hints of change over the last few months, particularly its October announcement that it plans to merge with MetroPCS. Then at parent-company Deutsche Telekom's Capital Markets Day, Dec. 6, T-Mobile executives laid out a multi-part plan that has been a long time in the making. More than suggesting the carrier might survive to see another year, the plan makes a compelling argument that T-Mobile might, as CEO John Legere has promised, "disrupt the industry." This eWEEK slide show presents the details of its plan to try to shake up the wireless industry that T-Mobile executives shared during their Dec. 6 talk.
No More Nice Girl
There's a three-phase marketing agenda in place. Phase 2 is a shift away from the "nice-girl advertising" T-Mobile has been doing to something "more edgy." The week before Thanksgiving, T-Mobile tried out this edgy approach. "We actually had almost a 70 percent year-over-year traffic increase on the Friday that we launched this," said Legere. "So we can move the needle."
