T-Mobile delivers another stellar performance
T-Mobile announced the results of its Q1 2021 operations last week, and once again managed to beat expectations. The carrier announced the addition of 1.2 million new postpaid subscribers, 773K of which were postpaid phone additions. The carrier ended the quarter with a record 103.4 million connections in total. T-Mobile’s prepaid business also grew by 151K compared to a loss of 128K customers in the year-ago quarter. This year-high prepaid growth was recorded at a time when T-Mobile migrated 170K Metro prepaid customers over to the Magenta postpaid side. Notably, the carrier’s non-phone postpaid base (composed mainly of tablets and smartwatches) has gone up by 437K lines, reaching 15.2 million connections. T-Mobile’s postpaid churn, which had previously hit a record low of 0.8% in Q2 2020, has continued to gradually increase (0.98% in Q1 2021). during the third quarter. On the other hand, the prepaid churn dropped to an all-time low of 2.78% in Q1 2021.
The NPD Take:
- T-Mobile’s performance in attracting over 700K new postpaid phone subscribers in Q1 2021 is partially related to the free line and free 5G device promotions in ran in the second half of the quarter, but the carrier indeed added 266K accounts that were new to the T-Mobile network.
- T-Mobile’s announcement on the migration of 170K Metro customers over to the postpaid Magenta side is a testament to the prepaid-to-postpaid migration trend we’ve been observing for the past two years. According to the NPD Mobile Consumer Tracking service, 45% of prepaid customers who switched carriers selected a postpaid service in 2H 2020.
Verizon sells Yahoo
Verizon last week officially announced the sale of its Verizon Media Business, which includes the AOL and Yahoo assets that Verizon acquired back in 2015 and 2017, respectively. The buyer, Apollo Global Management, will pay the carrier $5 billion, while Verizon will retain a 10% stake in the business, which will be branded as Yahoo. Neither Verizon nor Apollo Global provided any information on how the new company will handle Yahoo Mobile, Verizon’s digital MVNO brand launched a little over a year ago.
The NPD Take:
- Verizon has not provided any details about the fate of Yahoo Mobile, Verizon’s remaining (minor) ownership in the new Yahoo organization makes us believe that the MVNO service will continue operations.
- The Yahoo Mobile service is built on the backbone of Visible, Verizon’s digital-only MVNO targeting millennials. Despite a strong marketing push including TV commercials, the Visible brand still suffers in terms of recognition. According to a recent NPD survey, 2.5% of U.S. smartphone owners were aware of the Visible brand, while the Yahoo Mobile brand enjoyed a 4% awareness rate.
Boost Mobile offers telemedicine service add-one
Dish’s prepaid MVNO Boost Mobile last week announced that it will begin offering customers on the Unlimited Plus plan access to K Health telemedicine service that allows users to chat directly with a medical specialist and get medication prescriptions and treatment recommendations. Customers who are on lower-tier plans will have the ability to sign up for K Health for a discounted fee of $8/month. The service will be available later this summer.
The NPD Take:
- Value-add services such as OTT video and music service subscriptions have been highly demanded, but it’s been a challenge for prepaid providers to offer these due to cost limitations. Boost Mobile’s add-on health service may not be as appealing as an Amazon or Netflix subscription, but it will attract insurance-less prepaid customers during the pandemic environment.
- The free offering for the Unlimited Plus customers is certainly appealing considering that rival Tracfone’s Simple Mobile and Total Wireless brands charge $5.99/month for a similar telehealth service from Doc.com. On the other hand, Boost Mobile’s $8/month “discounted” rate for the lower-tier plan users is not that “discounted” as the K Health service can be purchased for $9/month.