Shaw gets aggressive with new iPhone pricing
Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom Mobile will shake up the way wireless carriers have traditionally sold Apple Inc. devices in Canada when it starts selling iPhones for the first time on Friday.
Freedom Mobile will sell the latest slate of iPhones, including the 8, 8 Plus and X, for $0 upfront on twoyear contracts, Shaw announced in a news release Wednesday.
This pricing strategy is a sharp departure from the standard followed by the Big Three carriers Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp., none of which offer the newest, most expensive iPhones for $0 down just months after a release.
As of Tuesday, the Big Three were selling the flagship iPhone X starting at $599 upfront plus $95 per month on two-year plans. That price only includes 1 GB of data, according to the carriers’ websites. The iPhone 8 and 8+ start at $229 and $359 on the same rate plans.
Freedom’s iPhone plans, on the other hand, include 10 GB of data starting at $65 per month for the iPhone 8 up to $110 per month for the iPhone X. To get that much data and a new iPhone from the Big Three, customers must pay at least $155 per month plus the upfront cost.
The steep discount comes with the caveat that Freedom’s network only covers major centres in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, meaning consumers may face additional roaming charges outside those zones.
Still, it’s a major deal for datahungry customers in Canada’s largest cities, especially considering wireless players earned more than $1 billion last year from data overage charges alone, according to the CRTC.
Industry watchers expect the ability to sell iPhones — regardless of the big data plans — will help Freedom. Shaw has spent millions upgrading to an LTE-advanced network, and in October announced it had reached a deal with Apple to sell iPhones. Shaw expects to finish network upgrades in Western Canada by early December and in the rest of its footprint by early 2018.
“Canadians have told us they want access to Apple’s range of products on a vastly improving network at a reasonable price,” Shaw president Jay Mehr said in a statement.
“By offering iPhone in combination with our Big Gig data plans and significant network improvements, we’re giving Canadians a new and improved option in a wireless service provider.”
Shaw is deploying additional 2500 MHz spectrum and refarming part of its AWS-1 spectrum to ensure older iPhone models work on its network.
It will sell the full range of iPhones (6, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and X) in western Canadian retail locations as of Dec. 8, according to Chethan Lakshman, vice-president of external affairs. It will only sell the newer models in Eastern Canada until network upgrades are completed early next year.