Ironically, prepaid wireless competition has improved at Walmart in the aftermath of Verizon’s November 2021 acquisition of TracFone. The number of prepaid brands sold there has been increasing, not falling.
Walmart is a huge venue for prepaid wireless sales. At the end of 3Q 2021, Straight Talk alone had 9.5 million subscribers. In terms of retail stores, it is sold only at Walmart. Dish Wireless, which now owns Boost Mobile, only has 8.55 million subscribers, despite having nearly 5,000 stores.
Other Verizon-owned brands sold broadly at Walmart are Walmart Family Mobile, Verizon prepaid, Total Wireless, and TracFone, while Simple Mobile has a presence at many Walmarts and Net10 Wireless sells SIMs at some Walmarts.
Other prepaid brands sold in recent years at Walmart are AT&T Prepaid, Cricket Wireless and Boost Mobile.
New prepaid brands launch at Walmart
In September, T-Mobile announced the launch of Metro by T-Mobile at more than 2,300 Walmarts. For years, Metro by T-Mobile was not sold at any other national retailers, and even today, Walmart is the only national retailer selling Metro by T-Mobile. There is an offer of a $40 credit for Metro by T-Mobile customers who purchase a phone and activate it in store.
AT&T Prepaid Unlimited Max was launched at Walmart in January. This is a Walmart-exclusive plan that provides a $5/month discount at several price points. AT&T Prepaid even enlisted actor Mario Lopez as a spokesman late in 2021, and the celebrity’s smiling image is now seen routinely on AT&T Prepaid displays at the retailer.
Ultra Mobile in November tweeted that it was launching “at select Walmart locations,” with a Walmart-exclusive unlimited plan sold for $39.88/month. Checks by Wave7 Research confirm that Ultra Mobile SIMs are on display at many Walmarts. Wave7 Research has reported that Ultra Mobile Silver has been trialed at Walmart and its website, as seen here, states that the brand is “available only at Walmart.” Ultra Mobile Silver is focused on older Americans and the brand is sold by the same company that sells Ultra Mobile and Mint Mobile.
Consumer Cellular has launched at some Walmart stores, Wave7 Research has reported. For now, Consumer Cellular displays are seen only at a small minority of Walmarts, so the effort is likely a trial effort. I have long written that Consumer Cellular is the “poster child” for MVNO success, as the senior-focused MVNO now has 4 million subscribers. Consumer Cellular currently has a $50 credit with new lines at Walmart, compared to a new line credit of only $25 at Walmart.
Improving plans for TracFone brands at Walmart
What about TracFone brands now under Verizon ownership? Two of its top brands now provide more data for the dollar. Straight Talk’s $45/month plan is now unlimited, versus having a limit of 25 GB previously, as BestMVNO reported in December. Its $55/month plan gained 100 GB of cloud, versus no cloud previously. Straight Talk’s $45/month plan now provides only 5 GB of hotspot data, versus 10 GB previously.
Total Wireless, a Verizon brand sold at Walmart and via other retailers, now provides unlimited data with its $50/month plan. Previously, the plan provided 25 GB of data prior to throttling.
Third-party labor: the secret sauce for Walmart’s success in wireless
Walmart in June 2019 announced that “more than 3,000 Walmart stores will have dedicated experts in wireless to help customers upgrade their phones and activate new lines with major U.S. carriers.” Prior to that announcement, 2,400 such experts were in place. For context, there are 3,571 Walmart Supercenters in the U.S., so most Walmarts have such experts. This figure excludes the nearly 700 Walmart Neighborhood Markets, which are basically grocery stores where sales of wireless devices are minor and are not worth discussing.
Several years before 2019, Walmart did not have such third-party labor pitching wireless and activating lines. For years, postpaid sales were minimal at Walmart, but checks and sources have indicated that this labor effort has turned Walmart into the vibrant venue for wireless sales that it is today. These dedicated staffers are more heavily incented to sell postpaid services from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, but they also get compensation for prepaid activations.
Target has gone in the opposite direction. Until 2020, the mobile department at Target had black-shirted third-party representatives who helped with wireless activations and expertise, but most Target stores no longer have such staffers. Consumer Cellular has been the anchor tenant of the Target mobile department, but this move has made Consumer Cellular activations and sales more complicated.
Room for growth, so what’s next at Walmart?
T-Mobile 5G Home Internet and Verizon 5G Home Internet — the companies' fixed wireless internet products — are not sold at Walmart, but why not? Verizon invested $45 billion in C-band spectrum and needs channels to monetize this investment. Straight Talk and other TracFone brands have 20 million phone subscribers and cross-selling internet access to these customers makes perfect sense. Also, T-Mobile in 2021 replaced Sprint at Walmart, and a T-Mobile 5G Home Internet launch there seems logical.
There are other possibilities. Charter's Spectrum hires reps to set up a table and pitch services at some Walmarts, but the cable companies overall could do far move to sell landline and mobile services at Walmart. And what about Dish Network? Sure, Boost Mobile is sold at Walmart, but sales of Dish Network postpaid services at national retail is an open question.
Ironically, prepaid competition has improved at Walmart despite Verizon’s acquisition of TracFone. Metro by T-Mobile and Ultra Mobile are on board, and Consumer Cellular is testing the waters. Straight Talk and Total Wireless have improved plans under the aegis of Verizon. My gut tells me there will be a push for internet sales at the retailer.
Walmart is now a real hub of wireless activations, and the abundant help of trained third-party representatives has been the secret sauce in its success.
Jeff Moore is Principal of Wave7 Research, a wireless research firm that covers U.S. postpaid, prepaid, and smartphone competition. Jeff has 25 years of telecom industry experience, including 13 years of competitive intelligence work for Sprint. Follow him on Twitter @wave7jeff.
Industry Voices are opinion columns written by outside contributors—often industry experts or analysts—who are invited to the conversation by FierceWireless staff. They do not represent the opinions of FierceWireless.