BusinessWeek Says Prepaid Wireless Takes Off
BusinessWeek’s Olga Kharif suggests, in an article written today, that The Big 4 Wireless providers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile) may see their growth curbed due to customers abandoning traditional wireless plans for prepaid plans–in an effort to save money.
Things were looking good for the wireless providers heading into Q1 2009. In fact, AT&T reported a 13.2% sales increase in Q4 2008. However, with the economic slowdown and a loss of consumer confidence, every-day folk are now making the move to prepaid wireless plans, and this is what could curb 2009 sales for the big guys.
In fact, the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) released today results of a survey that showed 17% of American have already dropped their traditional contract-based plans for prepaid plans. This change indicates that wireless users are desperately trying to cut expenses by limiting their wireless data useage (text messaging and text messaging), as well as talk-time.
Could this mean revenue increases for prepaid phone card providers? We’ll see soon enough. In the meantime you can catch the full two page article over on BusinessWeek’s website.