IPhone 8 Launch May Not Mean Costly Price War, Moffett Says

Apple's iPhone 8 launch may not lead carriers down the same troubled path as in 2016, when the 7 launched a price war, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors Monday. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure offered Friday to match other offers. “Sprint’s pricing announcements might be taken as the opening salvo in yet another brutal round of discounting,” Moffett wrote. “On closer analysis, that may not be the right reading. Far from being an irrational opening salvo, Claure’s pre-emptive tweet about ‘matching any offer’ may actually have been a well-considered message to his competitors to remember what went wrong in 2016.” Helping carriers is that prices of phones like the iPhone 7 or earlier models remain high, and since the offers require the trade-in of old handsets, the offers could prove nearly "costless" for carriers, the analyst said.