T-Mobile USA Offers $200 Credit To Lure Business Customers

T-Mobile USA, hoping to stem the loss of its most-valuable customers, began offering a $200 credit to business customers looking to switch to its service. New customers who sign up will get a $10 credit for 20 months after the line has been active for 90 days.

The credit was quietly offered starting last week. The move is a response to Sprint's own efforts to poach customers away from its rival carriers. Last month, it began offering a $125 credit to new smartphone customers and $175 to business customers. Sprint specifically targeted T-Mobile with its incentive, and a T-Mobile spokesman said its new offer is designed to win customers back. T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, is attempting to keep a business-as-usual outlook as it looks to be snapped up by AT&T in a proposed deal that is making its way through the approval process. In the meantime, the carrier has suffered from heavy customers losses--particularly from lucrative consumers who are dropping their long-term service contracts.