Cricket's big idea

In Philadephia, Cricket and Samsung are unveiling a 13' high replica of the Samsung Messenger.

The two companies earlier showed the giant phone in Chicago, as part of a publicity stunt for Cricket’s entry into the local market.

San Diego’s Leap Wireless (which owns the Cricket brand) has expanded to 35 of the top 50 markets with a POP of about 84 million — or about 27.5% of the potential US market. At the end of 2008, it had about 3.8 million subscribers.

Its younger roaming partner/low cost rival/spurned suitor Metro PCS is covering both unique and overlapping markets, with coverage in 92 of the top 100 markets. It ended 2008 with about 5.4 million subscribers.

Together, the two carriers have about 3.5% of (my estimate of) the 265 million US cellphone subscribers at the end of 2008, far behind the 28% of #1 Verizon Wireless (plus Alltel) or even the 12.4% of the smallest of the surviving national carriers, T-Mobile.


Photo from Chicago taken from Techgadgets.in.