Verizon offers response to T-Mobile’s unlimited plan for customers over 55 years old

Verizon is offering a plan for customers in Florida who are 55 years old and over that provides a single line of unlimited service for $60 per month or two lines for $80 per month. The company declined to say whether it would expand the offering beyond Florida.

Verizon’s new offer, first noted by Wave7 Research, is a clear response to the success of T-Mobile’s similar offering. Introduced last year, T-Mobile is offering customers 55 and old a single line of unlimited service for $50 per month and two lines for $60 per month.

“This raises two questions. Will Verizon take the offer to the rest of the U.S.? Will AT&T and Sprint launch similar plans?” wrote Wave7 in a research note.

T-Mobile executives have made no secret of the success of that 55-and-over offering.

“Our job is to look for ways to keep the growth going without creating increased competitive intensity in what’s already a pretty competitive market. So that’s the best return. So, it’s all about expansion: geographic expansion is a piece of it, and also segment expansion,” explained T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert earlier this year. “This unlimited 55+ offer we brought to market has been fantastic because it’s really going after prime AT&T and Verizon customers, and giving them a tipping point to finally switch.”

Added Sievert: “That’s going really well.”

Indeed, those kinds of demographic-specific offers are part of how T-Mobile expects to gain 2-3 million customers during 2018. Specifically, during the company’s recent earnings conference call with analysts, company executives said T-Mobile would expand the geographic reach of its network—to 325 million people across 2.5 million square miles by the end of 2018—and would also work to target new demographics like those 55 and older with specific promotions.

Another growth area T-Mobile has identified is the enterprise. “This is one of the significant growth areas of the company,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said, noting that T-Mobile’s share of the enterprise market is only 2-3%.

“We expect these investments to yield market share gains with suburban households, enterprise customers and Americans over the age of 55, all of which T-Mobile’s penetration in less than 10%,” wrote BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk in a recent research note.