AT&T enjoys post-Turkey Day sales rush
The company said its online traffic between Black Friday and Cyber Monday rose 32 percent from a year ago as consumers snapped up smartphones for a penny.
- SABEW Best in Business 2011 Award for Breaking News Coverage, Eddie Award in 2020 for 5G coverage, runner-up National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for culture analysis.
Once AT&T got past the awkwardness of Thanksgiving, the rest of the weekend went pretty well.
The Dallas telecommunications giant said today that new online orders between Black Friday and Cyber Monday rose 15 percent over a year ago, as traffic to its Web site increased by nearly a third. Traffic in AT&T stores also saw a significant hike as well.
It was a long weekend to be thankful for, particularly after Thanksgiving itself, when AT&T sneaked in its request to the Federal Communications Commission to withdraw its bid to acquire T-Mobile USA and took a $4 billion charge to cover the potential collapse of the deal. The withdrawal of the FCC bid was made in part to focus efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for merger from the Department of Justice.
The FCC today approved the withdrawal, but also said it plans to share its concerns about the deal to the public.
Among its promotions, the company offered up the Motorola Atrix, Samsung Infuse, BlackBerry 9810, HTC inspire, and LG Thrill for 1 cent each. AT&T is also the only carrier to sell the iPhone 3GS, which sells for 1 cent as well. Of course, those prices require a two-year service contract.
It wasn't the only carrier to offer promotions. Rival Verizon Wireless got into the mix, offering the Motorola Xoom for $199.99 with a contract, and the HTC Droid Incredible 2 for free.