Verizon Customers Not as Interested in Pre as You Might Think? 32
Thu, 13 Aug 2009 1:40 pm EDT 
In a recent study by Compete.com, their analysis showed that Verizon may not receive a considerable boost from when the Pre (or another webOS phone) lands on the nation’s most popular cellular network. The study focused on “pre-churners,” or current customers that are considering switching networks (having logged at least ten page views on competitor websites). In the end, there are two groups of people: those satisfied with Verizon, and those exploring other options. Of those looking elsewhere, only 1.7% were looking in the direction of the Palm Pre on Sprint, whereas 14.8% were considering the iPhone on AT&T.
It’s no surprise that the iPhone has drawn more attention from potential switchers than the Pre, as it has been on the market for two years longer and has a much larger established base (not to mention the marketing muscle of Apple). Unfortunately for our curiosity, the study did not take a look at what satisfied Verizon customers think of the Pre. We here at PreCentral know that there are a good many of you that do want the Palm Pre on Verizon, and at the very least early next year there should be a webOS device of some variety on Big Red.
There’s some good news for Verizon’s competitors, however. Pre-churners on Verizon logged 40% higher interest in the iPhone than Sprint or T-Mobile customers.
[via: EverythingPre]
32 Comments
When Verizon gets the Pre, you'll see their sales people change their mind about Palm. Sure, they may bad-mouth it now, but that's because they're trying to sell you one of their phones, all of which are pretty terrible.
Many Verizon customers are content with the Storm, which is horrible. I'm sure, if there were ANY other touchscreen smartphone on Verizon, those people would jump in a heartbeat. I describe the Storm as a phone for people who desperately want an iPhone, but refuse to leave Verizon. The Pre user-experience is much closer to the iPhone than the Storm.
I guarantee, when the Pre is on Sprint AND Verizon (and as it matures a bit), we'll see sales numbers for the Pre that will come close to iPhone-levels.
I don't think the results of the survey have anything to do with Verizon's opinion of Palm, but instead that Palm is no longer a household name for a phone or PDA manufacture. The exit poll of subscribers probably have barely heard of Palm as a phone manufacture because there have been few new products in the last three years and no ads. I am a Verizon subscriber who is currently using a Blackberry Curve very successfully but I am awaiting for the Palm Pre to be my next phone. Since I've been eligible to upgrade since May, I'm afraid it is still going to be a while, but I love what I've seen so far.
iPhone on Verizon? Are you on crack, retard?
I switched from verizon to sprint to get the pre. I was just tired of crippled phones on the verizon network.
Me too...and we x 4 are thrilled.
Same here. I figured that even if Verizon got the Pre in 6 months and I could stand to wait, I'd rather go with the carrier that's been a good partner to Palm over the years. Plus, I figured that with Sprint being an underdog these days, they have more of an interest in actually listening to their customers.
I dumped Verizon as soon as I could. Those data plans are ridiculous...I'm a smartphone developer. I need cheap unlimited plans to do what I do. I can get an unlimited plan from Sprint for less than a 4gb plan from Verizon. No contest for me.
But the only way you're going to get a fair analysis is to only poll early adopters. Even then, there are people who consider themselves "early adopters" because they bought an iPhone recently. It takes a year or two to build the word of mouth, to see phones in the field, and to advertise them properly.
My contract is up in early 2010. I would never consider Sprint because of their poor service in the areas I go. I just brought my daughter's line over from Virgin Mobile (Sprint PAYG) to Verizon this week after a year of reception problems and dropped calls for her. Her phone was really a trial balloon to see if Sprint could work for us. Whenever I was with her, if she had no reception I had decent reception. There were no instances she had better reception than I did.
I'm interested in the Pre. Very interested. But honestly, I'm also interested in the BB Tour and the iPhone. I have an iPod Touch and I love it. I'm not willing to go to Att for the iPhone, so I'll choose between the BB Tour and the Pre in early 2010 and stay with Verizon. Rumor has it 4G will start getting built out in 2010 and 2011 so I only need to last another year or two with CDMA and then I'll be able to pick up an LTE phone, pop in anybody's sim and keep going. I wonder how Verizon will differentiate themselves in a 4G world? The network will (allegedly) be the same for everybody and Verizon will finally have to stop crippling phones and hiking prices to keep us from leaving them.
Out of curiosity, I wonder how this happened. Sprint roams for free on Verizon so any time I was out in the boonies and could only get a VZW signal it would just kick over to roaming. VZW's strength is in all of the regional wireless carriers they bought up which allow them greater coverage in rural areas. Urban/suburban areas seem to be pretty much covered by the 4 major carriers.
people who think iphone will continue to be the best sicken me.. half of them don't even take the time to explore other phone os' like webos and googles android.. most iphone users are followers.. other people ignorant to other os' tell other ignoranus' that the iphone is the best and they listen.. its sad.. learn to be open minded and explore technology.. i'd be glad to see pre go to verizon so more people can adopt it and see how great it is..
although I dislike Apple..I have to give their marketing dept the credit for advertising the iphone as how the phone is. with one look at the iphone commerical, you'll completely understand what it does. compare that the Palm Pre's commerical....WTH?. So in a way I think maybe ads really do have an effect on peoples decision.
Yeah, the Pre's commercials are pretty bad.
My husband and I must be in that 1.7%, because I can't wait to ditch Verizon.
I switched from Verizon to Sprint to get the Pre. It's a big step down in terms of service. On Verizon, I never, ever dropped a call in 8 years...never, ever failed to lock GPS in 8 years. On Sprint, I'm seeing weak signal strength in surprising places, frequent failures to lock GPS (unacceptable, as I need Navigator for work), and today, no internet all day (causing me to miss several emails and SMS's, and causing the Pre to drain its battery trying fruitlessly to connect--yet it didn't warn me anything was wrong). I wish I'd waited for it to come out on Verizon -- better network, and enough time that maybe they can work out the bugs in the OS (damn internet and GPS need to connect every time, not 70% of the time!). And it's not the individual phone -- I already returned my first Pre due to an unrelated defect, and this second one has these same issues.
not a bad device just wish it had more apps I have great coverage were I am