Sprint bets the farm on iPhone, pays Apple $20 billion for 30.5 million iPhones

It's no longer considered a rumor, Sprint will be getting the iPhone 4S / iPhone 5 (or whatever it ends up being called at tomorrow's iPhone event,) and they are literally betting the future of the company on the Apple smartphone. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company has agreed to pay Apple $20 billion on a 30 million unit order for the next couple of iPhone versions over the next few years, looking to mitigate the exclusive that AT&T and Verizon have had. Sprint would then subsidize each device for $500 to sell to customers, and will likely not see any profits from the gamble until 2014 at the earliest.

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook
• Comments (0)
• Email this story