Newsletter
AT&T has seen the rise in competition and will take any necessary action to stop any of the other three major carriers in the United States take its spot at the top as the most prominent cellular network provider. Said actions have already begun surfacing, as the company released a new installment of the AT&T Next program, which essentially gives “well-qualified” customers the option to get any of AT&T’s latest smartphones and pay only the sales tax up front or a give a payment down to a mere 30 percent, while paying the rest in a 12-month period of time. The new version of AT&T Next is confirmed by the company to be called “AT&T Next 12 with Down Payment” , a name that was already mentioned in several rumors.
With AT&T’s new plan, customers will be able to pay only 30 percent of any relatively new device’s full retail price upfront when making the purchase; the catch here is that the remaining device’s cost will be divided into 28 monthly payments. Fortunately for customers, in order to switch to a newer smartphone, they don’t have to wait for the 28 months to pass. AT&T will also give users of the Next 12 with Down Payment, the alternative to upgrade to any new smartphone after just a year of monthly payments.
The new AT&T Next 12 with Down Payment, will not force users to give a 30 percent down payment at the moment of their purchase, as the carrier also offer a reasonable amount of variants to the Next plan, none of which require a down payment, like the AT&T Next 12 with Down Payment does. The newly released plan is most likely aimed for AT&T customers that don’t have an outstanding payment history, so that AT&T doesn’t end up so affected if the customer doesn’t pay in time, ultimately reducing financial risks for AT&T at a large scale. The largest carrier in the nation stated that during this year’s first quarter, 65 percent of the total postpaid smartphone profit comes from the AT&T Next plans, up from the 58 percent that the company had in Q4 2014. The new 12 with Down Payment shows the interest AT&T has in raising those numbers even more, as they provide with a stable income for at least a year.