Study finds landing the iPhone saved T-Mobile from losing at lst 300,000 customers

Even if it doesn’t look like it on paper, this has been a big yr for T-Mobile. Since January, the company haslaunched its LTE network, unveilednew plans, and has managed to get the attention of the larger carriers with its new’Jump‘ device upgrade program.But perhaps the biggest thing that happened to T-Mobile this yr was that it finallyinked an iPhone dl. Until March, it was the only major US carrier not offering the handset. And according to a new study, landing it likely saved them over 300,000 customers…The studycomes from theConsumer lice Resrch Partners(viaElectronista), who conducteda poll with subscribers at T-Mobile prior to the iPhone launch. The results found that 25% of them were looking to jump ship before lrning about the iPhone.To be honest, I’m not quite sure where they get the 300,000 . Their testing sample was small—like 500 people small—and it wasn’t defined. But I suppose they could have extrapolated their findings and applied them to T-Mobile’s churn over the last quarter.Regardless, the data isn’t surprising considering that the carrier reportedly sold 500,000 i in the handset’s first month, andnrly 1 millioni all together during the June quarter. A lot of folks were clrly awaiting the arrival of the popular smartphone.The big takway here is that T-Mobile has found a way to keep a large of its customers on board, which is a big dl for carriers. Add to that the 9 million or so new subscribers it’s gaining from its recentMetroPC acquisition, and things start to get interesting.