T-Mobile officially started selling and supporting Apple's iPhone on Friday, and Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert said sales were "gangbusters." The carrier is the last of the major cell phone service companies to land an iPhone deal and was hoping its "Uncarrier" package that does away with subsidized phone prices and complicated service contracts would draw in new subscribers.
"Today has been gangbusters for T-Mobile," Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert told AllThingsD. "We experienced lines out the door this morning at nearly all of our almost 3,000 stores nationwide."
iPhone launches are known for their long lines, but this one didn't include a brand new phone model. Instead, T-Mobile kicked off its iPhone service with the iPhone 5, which has already been available through AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and several regional carriers for about six months.
T-Mobile is offering the iPhone 5 for US$99.99 down, and 24 payments of $20 instead of subsidizing the phone's cost. Once customers pay off their iPhone, the monthly bill they pay drops by $20. The deal also drops traditional two-year contracts in favor of month-to-month service with unlimited talk time, and 2GB of data for $60. For $70 a month, customers can have unlimited voice and unlimited data.
Lines for T-Mobile's iPhone didn't, however, last all day, so by afternoon customers could walk into the carrier's stores and pick up their new phone without much of a wait.