Think there’d be a huge market for Apple (AAPL: 580.32, +8.60, +1.50%) iPhone plans costing as little as $30 a month?  Apparently, not.
At the end of June the ubiquitous, Siri-packing smartphone will finally be officially available on a prepaid mobile phone carrier -- make that two carriers: Sprint’s (S: 2.98, +0.24, +8.76%) Virgin Mobile USA and Leap Wireless’s Cricket.  Like most no-contract carriers, both tout super-low-cost monthly plans for the device, with Virgin Mobile’s costing as little $30 a month for 300 voice minutes, unlimited texting, and unlimited data.  Compare that to upwards of $90 per month on a traditional post-paid carrier like AT&T (T: 34.55, +0.39, +1.14%).
What’s the catch?  You don’t get that 16GB iPhone 4S for a heavily subsidized $199.  Instead, you’ve got to pay $650 (or $499 on Cricket, but with a $55 per month plan).  And while over the course of two years you’ll pay a bit over half as much on Virgin as you would on AT&T for a similar plan (with a two-year contract), that upfront cost for the smartphone could be a dealbreaker for many, especially with several Google (GOOG: 580.45, +2.22, +0.38%) Android smartphones available off-contract for prices closer to $200.
“I think at this price point it’s pretty challenging,” Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin told FOX Business.  “What (Cricket Wireless) is doing is paying a little bit of subsidy in order to bring the price down which makes the iPhone a little bit more palatable to these customers but typically, and I’m generalizing here, a prepaid customer is someone who is a little more challenged economically and can’t quality for a plan or doesn’t want to commit to a contract so they want more flexibility.”
That isn’t to say there’s no market for this sort of setup.  “I think what the market here at this price point consists of is customers who want to be off-contract, who appreciate the monthly savings of these prepaid plans compared to the alternatives from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, and who have a little bit of cash so they can offset that long-term savings of the plan with the money that they have upfront for it to pay for itself.  So I’d say it’s a small market,” Golvin explained.