Apple iPhone coming to MetroPCS?

If you were a Verizon customer during those dark days before AT&T lost its exclusivity on the iPhone, you remember the excitement that ensued when Apple said that Big Red was finally going to add the device to its lineup. Of course, had Apple done that about a year earlier, Verizon wouldn't have marketed the Motorola DROID so hard and things might have turned out differently for iOS and Android.

Even though Android has nearly 60% of the U.S. market according to Kantar's latest data, the Apple iPhone remains the number one smartphone in the states, which is why most pre and post-paid carriers still want to have the device in their lineup. T-Mobile CFO Mike Sievert said this week that T-Mobile would be interested in offering the iPhone to its MetroPCS pre-paid customers.

It's not like MetroPCS customers haven't been able to buy high-end models. The Samsung Galaxy S5, for example, is available on the MetroPCS line-up. And the process of adding the iPhone to MetroPCS might be easier than you think. Considering that T-Mobile has been very successful in getting MetroPCS customers to migrate to its network, T-Mobile could ask Apple to merely divert some of the handsets that were supposed to be sent to the post-paid carrier, to the pre-paid operator. The branding is the big thing that would have to be changed.

Half of MetroPCS' customers are using a device that also works on the T-Mobile pipeline, and T-Mobile has already grabbed half of Metro's spectrum so that it can refarm it for its enhanced LTE offering.

source: Recode via SlashGear