DirecTV Now rejuvenates 32GB Apple TV 4K bundle offer for 4 months service

In what appears to be a turnaround from profitability to stopping the hemorrhaging of losing customers, AT&T has brought back its bundle offer of a 32GB Apple TV 4K unit to new DirecTV Now customers willing to prepay for four months of service.

The offer is similar to previous offers, albeit with a higher price of $50 a month for the cheapest available package, a $10 a month increase that was changed in early March.

The new deal comes seven months after scrapping its nine-month-long promotion of offering a free 32GB Apple TV 4K to new customers who prepay for a three-month subscription to the live streaming service. The deal expires April 30, 2019.

When all is said and done, consumers who buy into the offer will pay around $200 for four months of DirecTV Now and a brand new Apple TV 4K which would traditionally total to $380.

The new $200 deal is more expensive than the $179 retail price of a 32GB Apple TV 4K model.

The new offer can be seen as nothing more than an about-face by a company that told stockholders and the public for months that it would stop all promotions of free equipment and lose customers for the foreseeable future. That appears to have been long enough for AT&T.

“Now we’re focusing on improving profitability,” said AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens last November. “(We’ve) scaled back our (DirecTV Now) promotions and special offers. We also moved toward market pricing in the (third) quarter. We expected net (subscriber) adds to be impacted by these actions.”

AT&T CEO John Donovan reiterated Stephens’ comments back in November, saying the company made the strategic decision to rationalize promotions and special offers for DirecTV Now. “We’re taking a more tailored, data-driven approach,” he commented. “Specifically, we focused on reducing promotions for low value, high churn customers.”

During its fourth-quarter earnings report for 2018, DirecTV Now reported that it lost 267,000 subscribers. This was attributed to the closure of discount bundles like the original Apple TV 4K offer.

Consumers interested in the offer can find the discount buried in their website after beginning the sign-up process.