Stock up on cases and Poké Balls at your closest Sprint store.
The Pokémon Company has announced that over 10,000 Sprint, Boost Mobile and “Sprint at Radioshack” locations will become PokéStops and Gyms over the next few weeks.
As “the first Pokémon Go United States partner,” Sprint will be able to leverage Pokémon Go’s ongoing popularity to bring people into stores, allowing them to not only top up their Poké Ball reserves, but also their phones at in-store charging stations.
The move is certainly a win for Sprint, which needs ways to differentiate itself from T-Mobile and the rest of the U.S. carrier game. Earlier this summer, T-Mobile launched a promotion forgiving all Pokémon Go data for a year, but that was during the height of the craze; Sprint is launching this promotion at the beginning of winter, when outdoor roaming is going to be considerably lower than it was in July.
Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Japan’s SoftBank, Sprint’s majority shareholder, plans to invest roughly $50 billion into the U.S. economy, and may revive merger plans with T-Mobile, which were stopped under pressure by the current regulatory environment, but that may change under the new administration.
Sprint, despite a move to expand and improve the speed and reliability of its LTE network, added the fewest number of customers in Q3, and is still some 10 million subscribers behind third-place T-Mobile.
Pokémon Go
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-0OrEs2nr4?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=1]
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
- How to deal with GPS errors in-game
- Which team should you choose?
- How to play without killing your battery
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
- Listen to the Pokémon Go podcast!
