iPhone 7 annual release has reportedly prompted customer defections in the smartphone industry. This may be due to the fact that subscribers often switch carriers in order to benefit from a better deal on the new Apple handset. However, despite the rate of defections or churn rate, which is at record lows earlier this year, experts believe that the iPhone 7 release would likely create tension again.
An early look at the results for the last quarter was released by Sprint, which is the initial reading from any of the four big carriers since the release of iPhone 7 in the market. According to the rate of defections for the three months ended Sept. 30, there was a relative low rate at 1.37 percent of regular monthly phone customers.
Based on the iPhone 7 report, it appears that the wireless carries on the fourth spot gained more postpaid customers, earning a net of 347,000 subscribers instead of 280,000 that experts had predicted. The shares of Sprint, which already increased by 50 percent from its previous earnings, reportedly gained only 1 percent.
Given that, there are speculations that the appeal of iPhone 7 has faded for most of the customers. However, there are others who believe that there could be a number of other dynamics that may likely explain the result.
However, without data from T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T, experts agree that it is too soon to infer that iPhone 7 was not able to encourage as much carrier switching. Nevertheless, the early indications from Sprint seems to show a changed wireless industry, Fortune reported.
Meanwhile, two iPhone 7 variants have reportedly been introduced in the market. These include the GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, TD-SDCMA, LTE version with Qualcomm hardware and the GSM, WCDMA, LTE with Intel modem design. Based on reports, the initial performance difference between the two variants indicates that the iPhone 7 with Qualcomm MDM9645M modem provides better cellular performance than the one with Intel features.
iPhone 7 variant with Qualcomm modem is made available only in the US, Japan and China, which prompts speculations that the Intel version is considered by Apple to be good enough to other regions, 9to5Mac reported. Watch video about iPhone 7 - What Apple Doesn't Want You To Know here: