HTC Touch Pro2 officially launching on September 8th, $349.99
We're willing to forgive the horrible quality on these press mock ups of Sprint's HTC Touch Pro2 because, well, we're just way too happy to see this sucker get official to care. Are you a current or prospective Sprint subscriber?
Context & Ripple Effects
This launch closes a loop Sprint opened two years ago when it introduced its first touch-screen phone, and more directly last November when the original HTC Touch Pro went on sale online. The Pro2 had been floating as an import since April, when it was pegged at roughly $880 unlocked — so a $349.99 subsidized price puts a flagship Windows Mobile handset within reach of ordinary Sprint buyers.
The timing matters for Sprint beyond one SKU: the carrier has spent the summer leaning on smartphones, with CEO Dan Hesse publicly backing the Palm Pre (an estimated 350,000 units sold in seven weeks, per an RBC analyst) while stating he was glad Sprint held off on Android. The Touch Pro2 gives Sprint a second premium hardware anchor heading into the fall selling season.
First-order effects
- Sprint subscribers get an official September 8th ship date and a $349.99 price point — less than half the ~$880 street price the same handset carried as an unlocked import in April.
- The Touch Pro2 now competes directly with the Palm Pre inside Sprint's own lineup for the same premium-data-plan customer Hesse has been courting.
Second-order effects
- The steep gap between the $349.99 subsidized price and the ~$880 unlocked figure shows how much margin Sprint is absorbing per unit to lock buyers into contracts — the same playbook as its recent 99-cent Compaq netbook subsidy, where the device is bait and the service plan is the business.
- HTC gets another proof point for its multi-carrier US strategy, strengthening its leverage with the remaining big carriers still finalizing their own fall lineups.
Third-order effects
- If carrier subsidies keep compressing flagship handset prices this aggressively, hardware margins migrate from device makers' US retail prices into operator contracts, and competitive differentiation shifts to whose network and data plans the phone locks you into — the axis where Sprint is also staking its rumored WiMAX expansion (a leaked rollout roadmap naming additional cities remains unconfirmed).
The trend: US carriers are using ever-deeper device subsidies to turn flagship smartphones into cheap contract bait, shifting the competitive battleground from handsets to data plans and networks.