Verizon Solves Pain Point with ‘Ultimate’ Upgrade, Adds Even More Content
The smartphone market’s growth phase ended years ago, and without a large influx of new users, carriers have to take market share from rivals to add subscribers. One of the best ways to do that is to entice subscribers to switch carriers to get the latest premium devices for free or with heavy discounts and effectively finance the remainder of the purchase at 0% interest financing over 24 – 30 month timeframes. The problem with this strategy is that the more successful it is, the more it alienates a carrier’s best existing customers, who can only get these deals if they leave.
In the 5G era, T-Mobile entered with the best mid-band spectrum position, Verizon had the best network reputation, and AT&T had a distracting large media deal. It turned out that merely owning HBO was not a sufficient strategy to gain wireless subscribers, so AT&T started offering the most generous device subsidies. AT&T eventually purchased C-band spectrum and invested heavily in fiber infrastructure, but to reduce the risks of subscribers jumping ship, it began offering its best device deals to existing customers on premium plans as well as new ones — and advertised this heavily on TV. T-Mobile already had a cost advantage, but to entice frequent upgraders to stay put it created Go5G Next, an extra-cost version of its Go5G service that includes devices upgrades as often as annually.
Earlier this week Verizon announced that it is also making its device subsidies available to its top-tier upgrades as part of “the Ultimate Phone Upgrade.” This isn’t actually a new plan, just a new feature of Verizon’s Unlimited Ultimate tier of service. So while Verizon is last to market addressing this pain point, it isn’t charging its best customers any more to participate.
Verizon Adds More to its Leading Content Position
Verizon also announced two new partners for its flexible myPlan streaming content add-on to its unlimited wireless subscriptions: YouTube Premium and Peacock. As Techsponential found when looking at mobile content options, Verizon already offered the most choices and flexibility. Each service is provided at a monthly discount of at least $3 – 4 and sometimes more, so consumers buying multiple services for a household can save enough on their content that it can make Verizon’s overall offering cost effective. Even without the cost savings, myPlan gives consumers the flexibility to turn services on and off as often as monthly via an app, so an active user can save even more by tailoring what they pay for to what they’re actually using that month.
YouTube Premium is now a $10 perk, a 30% saving off the price direct from Google. YouTube Premium is less of a programmed streaming channel and more a way to watch YouTube without constant ad breaks. YouTube content ranges from music videos to tutorials to linear content with TV-style production values, but most successful YouTube channels insert their own promos and sponsored segments into their content, so buying YouTube Premium is essential to maintaining sanity for anything other than the most casual use of YouTube. It also allows for downloading videos for offline watching (ideal for travel) and includes full access to YouTube Music Premium. At launch, Verizon is only offering individual YouTube Premium accounts, not family access.
Peacock isn’t a monthly myPlan perk but an annual addition to the +play lineup which sits alongside it. Here, the value proposition is even stronger: rather than getting a $5 monthly discount, a year of Peacock through +play costs just $20. That includes not only NBC, Bravo, and Peacock’s own content, but also NFL games and entire Olympics sports that are not available anywhere else.
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