Samsung Leading Upgrades with T-Mobile Jump! Program

When T-Mobile (News - Alert) CEO, John Legere, took over in 2012, the company was losing a large number of subscribers, before he started introducing what at the time seemed outrageous choices. Eventually they started panning out, which led to the company being one of the fastest-growing carriers in the U.S. By eliminating contracts and offering to pay early termination fees, customers started flocking to the company. Legere added the T-Mobile Jump! Program which, according to him, was implemented to liberate customers from the two year sentences smartphone users of other companies have been subjected to. A new ITG Market Research study has revealed Jump! customers have been using the program to get early upgrade options to the latest devices coming in the market.

The Jump! upgrade program allows T-Mobile customers to change their existing smartphone or tablet with a new model when it becomes available. Once a customer is enrolled, they can upgrade to any new device with no waiting or limits on how many times they are able to exchange their device. Considering how many new devices come into the market, this option has gone very well with customers.

The ITG study was designed to see at what rate customers were upgrading and to which new device they were jumping. The study revealed that, since April, the Samsung (News - Alert) Galaxy S5 has captured 40 to 45 percent of customers upgrading early through the program, even though it was capturing 25 to 30 percent of all T-Mobile sales each month. This means more people were upgrading to the Galaxy S5 at a higher rate than any other brand

When the Galaxy S5 was launched in April, the jump rate across all other smartphones increased to the Samsung even amongst iPhone (News - Alert) 5 owners, but when the iPhone 5S was released they were evenly split between the new Galaxy S5.

The upgrade to Samsung devices from Apple owners was up by 25, 43, 37, and 39 percent for the months of March, April, May and June respectively. Samsung owners also had the highest rate of upgrade to the brand for the same months with 51, 80, 76, and 70 percent of the exchanges.

According to Gary Cohen, Director of ITG Market Research, the number of iPhone owners has not increased that much since it launched its S5, adding that Apple and Samsung owners have been using the program to move to LG's G2 (News - Alert) and the new L90. He said, "LG appears to be gaining traction and with the launch of the G3 in July, LG has the chance to gain more attention and share in advance of the iPhone 6 this fall."