Where T-Mobile Deals with Pandora and Live Nation Fit

T-Mobile (TMUS) has partnered with Pandora (P) and Live Nation (LYV) to add extras for its customers. The pact with Pandora lets customers on T-Mobile’s flagship unlimited wireless plan get Pandora Plus subscriptions free for one year. Pandora Plus is one of Pandora’s three service tiers and normally costs $4.99 per month. The deal with Live Nation includes offering T-Mobile unlimited customers discounted tickets to Live Nation events.

The addition of Pandora expands T-Mobile’s wireless entertainment perks. The company already offers free Netflix streaming for its unlimited customers.

As the battle for customers has intensified in the US wireless market, providers are trying every trick in the book to grow their customer base or at least boost customer retention. Tactics to win customers have included mobile operators investing to improve network performance and offering price discounts on services.

For a long time, price wars dominated America’s wireless competition. Now, entertainment bundling is emerging as a key competitive frontier. That appears to be the driver behind T-Mobile’s deals with Pandora and Live Nation. In June, AT&T (T) began offering Pandora Premium as a bundle for customers on its top-tier unlimited wireless plan.

Verizon (VZ) has teamed up with Apple on a program that lets Verizon’s unlimited customers access Apple Music for six months free of charge. Apple Music normally costs $10 per month for an individual account. Verizon is also contemplating bundling free YouTube TV for its 5G (fifth-generation) customers. YouTube TV is a product of Google that offers more than 60 live television channels and costs $40 per month.

Sprint (S) also treats its wireless customers to extras, which include free Tidal and Hulu streaming.

T-Mobile made a profit of $782 million in the second quarter. It gained 1 million postpaid customers in that period.