Mobile Phone pricing..

Krusty_Clown

Is it just me, or is there something strange going on at the moment with respect to phone-resellers and pricing?

I've been looking out for a phone for the last couple of weeks..
e.g. O2's website, Vodaphone shops, and Carphone Warehouse.

In the last few days:
1) O2 have removed all prices from their website - with a message : ask instore for price details
2) Carphone Warehouse have removed all of their in-store pricing - you have to ask an assistant
3) Carphone Warehouse have removed all of their pricing from their monthly magazine (was in the last issue, but not in this issue).

Am I being paranoid, or is there something going on? Are they getting ready for the X-Mas push?

Part of the reason I'm asking, is that I'm trying to find out the proce of a Siemens M50... I saw this about two weeks ago, in an O2 shop for 50euro (first-time connection)..

In CarPhone Warehouse today, the assistant quoted me: 129 euro (incl. a 170 euro bonus upgrade)... I just don't trust the assistants in that particular branch of CFW, as I beleive they would be better suited to selling Newspapers, than expensive technology products.

Weird... Anyone know if there's a price blitz on the cards, or are the phone dealers just becoming less public about their pricing?
Anyone have any websites which offer prices of phones in Eire?

seamus

I may be wrong, but expect the prices of phones to keep rising. With penetration at 70%, it's not as profitable as it used to be to subsidise the cost of phones. Now service providers will have to use prices to gain new customers, as opposed to offering them really cheap phones, especially with postpay. I know for a fact, that while around 3/4 of Vodafone's subscribers are on Ready To Go, they only generate 20% of revenue. So it's not worth their while providing cheap phones to people on Ready To Go, especially seeing as they are so non-loyal to a provider - How many people who already had a phone, switched to Meteor, used up the free credit and then went back to their old phone, for example?

Neither is it worth their while providing cheap upgrades to postpay customers, because postpay tend to be very loyal, regardless of what phone they have.

I'd be surprised if you couldn't get a first-time connection on an M50 for less than €40, but a €129 upgrade is very reasonable.

The reason you are being told to ask around for pricing is probably because they don't have the whole "Brand New phone with free connection and car kit, etc etc for only £5!", anymore, so they need the hard sell of the assistants, and the show of call prices to pull in the punters, ie advertising the phone prives won't do them any favours

Krusty_Clown

Hmm.. Interestingly, it seems I was right...
The 02 shops are going through an interesting pricing period..

I returned to Carfone Warehouse (in Dun Laoghaire - where they attendants are very, very good) and the shop assistant quoted me 129 Euro for the Siemens M50. He then when on to tell me that there is no point in buying the phone at the moment in CFW, as it is waaaay over-priced (and that 02 were being awkard with there pricing at the moment).

He sent me up to the local 02 shop, where I picked up the phone for 100 euro less (i.e. 29 euro (upgrade)).

So, yes, there is still competitive pricing for pay-monthly customers. You just have to know the right times/places to go (and no, it turns out that 129 euro isn't very reasonable).