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“Given our assumption of approximately $425 in carrier subsidies per handset, we believe the U.S. carrier market could be on the hook for more than $10 billion over the last three and a half months of the year alone, entirely due to the new iPhone launch.”
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but...
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it’s not all gloom and doom for the carriers. They get new contract customers in a saturated mobile market that will use a lot of data. Since the carriers are doing everything they can to move customers to the newer and more profitable shared data plans, the up front margin loss should work itself out over the life of those contracts.
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http://gigaom.com/apple/analyst-ipho...-in-subsidies/
EDIT: Interesting comment:
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We all tend to look at the benefits of what the iPhone has brought to the industry. But, what about the negatives? This is one of them. Apple commands such a high dollar amount that carriers are perceived to absorb the costs. Initially? yes. Indirectly? no.
The subsidized pricing difference for customers to walk out the door with an iphone is minimal. Upfront costs for carriers isn’t. Carriers then have to adjust their price plans accordingly to offset the cost. Guess who pays for that whether we want to support Apple’s ecosystem or not? ... Today, carriers have made it easy for anyone to afford an Apple device while making Apple very rich. But, it does come to the expense of EVERYONE; not just Apple consumers.
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