Sprint will be offering Apple’s iPhone 5 for sale beginning in October, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The iPhone will go on sale in mid-October at the No. 3 U.S. carrier, according to the WSJ‘s sources.
In addition to the iPhone 5, Sprint, which has a total subscriber base of 52 million as of the close of its most recent financial quarter, will also begin selling the iPhone 4 around that time, according to the report. If accurate, Apple’s smartphone will then be available to all the top three major U.S. carriers, since Verizon began selling the iPhone 4 earlier this year, in addition to AT&T.
More carrier choice is always a good thing for cell phone customers, and Sprint will definitely benefit from having the device that still remains the most popular single smartphone model in the U.S. The only thing that may disappoint some about the report is that it seems to indicate we’ll see a later introduction date for the iPhone 5 than has been reported, as the WSJ‘s sources indicated mid-October instead of earlier in the month or late September, as previous reports suggested.
Sprint remains the only major U.S. carrier with an unlimited data plan in place, so that might be a major selling point for data-hungry iPhone owners if it stays in place. Will Sprint offering the iPhone prompt a change in carriers for anyone?
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