Unsold iPhones Piling Up at Leap Wireless

For one of the country's prepaid cellphone carriers, a big bet on the iPhone is becoming a big headache. Leap Wireless International, which operates the Cricket cellphone brand, said it is on pace to sell half as many iPhones as it committed to sell during the first year of its contract with Apple Inc., which ends in June.

As a result, Leap said, it could end up with $100 million worth of unsold iPhones by the middle of this year. That spells more trouble for Leap, a company struggling to keep pace with larger competitors, and sheds light on the challenges facing Apple in cracking the huge market for smartphones being bought by lower-income consumers. Leap, which has about 5.3 million total subscribers, is also handicapped by the fact it lacks the robust nationwide networks of the country's biggest carriers, and because technological limits mean it can't sell the iPhone in all of its markets.