AT&T will be the latest company to enter the daily deals market when it launches a Groupon-esque service in Dallas, Atlanta, and Los Angeles in about a month.
The company is already trying to hook customers by offering a $10 credit to those who sign up for daily emails on YellowPages.com before May 22.
According to Bloomberg, AT&T's service will expand to other cities and be available on mobile devices, but the company has not yet revealed which companies will be offering deals.
In February, AT&T teamed up with Placecast for ShopAlerts, which provides customers with location-based alerts regarding nearby discounts. Companies that signed on for ShopAlerts included HP, Kmart, JetBlue, SC Johnson, Kibbles 'n Bits, Nature's Recipe, and the National Milk Mustache "got milk?" Campaign.
Last week Facebook launched Daily Deals in Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, San Francisco, and San Diego. The service, which will likely expand to additional cities, was made possible through partnerships with other deal companies including Gilt City, HomeRun, viagogo, zozi, Tippr, ReachLocal, PopSugar City, Plum District, OpenTable, kgb deals, and aDealio. With army of 500 million users, Facebook could be a strong competitor in the space.
The New York Times Company also recently launched a high-end daily deals service called TimesLimited. Google is throwing its hat in the ring too. Last month, the company launched a beta test of its deals program in New York, Portland, and San Francisco.
Existing deal companies have stepped their game up recently to answer to new competition. Number-two group-buying site LivingSocial finished raising $400 million in funding in order to fuel its growth both domestically and internationally. LivingSocial is said to be closing the gap between itself and top dog Groupon, adding about 1.5 million new users every week.
Groupon is expected to be headed for an initial public offering later this year that would value it at up to $25 billion.