Apple unveiled its new iPhone models in Cupertino on September 12, 2018. From September 14, 2018, Swiss consumers can pre-order the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, with major Swiss mobile service providers Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt having announced their prices for the new iPhones on the same date.
Ralf Beyeler, telecom expert at moneyland.ch, analyzed the prices of the new iPhones and the mobile plans attached to them based on the total costs of the phone themselves, the cost of mobile plans or prepaid offers and other applicable fees. A 24-month term was used for cost calculations. Calculations were performed using the new, comprehensive mobile plan comparison on moneyland.ch based on three different standard profiles and the iPhone XS with 128 gigabytes of storage.
Package deals compared
Mobile service providers are advertising the newest iPhones at 1 Swiss franc. But consumers should be aware that they will have to pay off the entire cost of the iPhone via their monthly phone bills. Swisscom and Salt in particular require customers to use their services for a minimum of 24 months from the time they sign up for an offer. Sunrise contracts, on the other hand, do not normally have minimum terms of more than 24 months.
moneyland.ch took a close look at the package deals offered by Swisscom, Sunrise, Salt and UPC. The results are surprising: Flat-fee plan users get a better deal at Swisscom than at Salt and Sunrise. Salt works out cheapest for occasional telecom users, followed by UPC, Sunrise and Swisscom in that order. UPC has the cheapest package deal for low users, followed by Swisscom, Salt and Sunrise. That means Swisscom is cheaper than Salt and Sunrise in the low-use category as well.
Buying iPhones and mobile plans separately
As an alternative to getting iPhones from mobile service providers as part of package deals, consumer can buy the iPhone directly from Apple or other mobile phone retailers and get stand-alone mobile plans or prepaid offers without a phone. This option works out the cheapest, as the moneyland.ch analysis shows. The cheapest mobile plan and the cheapest prepaid offer from each of the three major Swiss mobile service providers Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt were used by moneyland.ch for its comparison.
Depending on the consumer profile, the differences in the costs of different stand-alone plans for consumers who buy iPhones directly from Apple can be significant. Flat-fee plan users pay the least using the Prepaid Unlimited 90 Days offer from Sunrise, with a total expense of 2349 francs over 24 months including the cost of the phone purchased from Apple.
Prepaid offers from ALDI SUISSE top the results for occasional users. The total costs for an iPhone purchased from Apply and telecom services come to 2073 francs. Various offers from other mobile service providers also work out fairly affordable, at 50 to 100 francs more.
Consumers who only seldomly use telecom services like calls, data and SMS messaging would spend the least using a prepaid offer from Swisscom brand SimplyMobile, at a total cost of 1647 francs for the phone from Apple and the prepaid service. TalkTalk and Yallo are only marginally more expensive.
Note that the standard profiles provide a good general point of reference. You can easily find the most affordable mobile plans or prepaid offer for your exact needs using customizable individual profiles in the unbiased mobile plan comparison on moneyland.ch.
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