topic Re: Verizon buys Tracfone in Electronics

Verizon buys Tracfone

Ainhisg — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 12:13:50 GMT

The article said that Verizon wanted "the value-oriented" wireless market.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verizon-buys-prepaid-phone-provider-tracfone-120100041.html

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

jackthebear — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 13:06:50 GMT

@Ainhisg wrote:
The article said that Verizon wanted "the value-oriented" wireless market.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verizon-buys-prepaid-phone-provider-tracfone-120100041.html

good move for both companies I think

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

gardenman — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 13:22:52 GMT

Tracfone already has an agreement with Verizon and uses Verizon towers, so this is a pretty natural move on both sides. Verizon gains 20+ million new customers for a relatively minor cost in terms of cash. They lose the revenue they gained from Tracfone renting tower time but gain more customers. The T-Mobile/Sprint merger helped to force their hand a bit. Verizon's paying about $150 in cash per Tracfone customer ($3.125 billion in cash over 21 million customers) so that's kind of a bargain given the cost to acquire customers through advertising or other means. The stock cost is less of a burden for a company.

Now we get to see if they keep Tracfone separate, suck it in under the Verizon corporate label, or what happens. For Tracfone customers, it could be good as Verizon has multiple storefronts where you could, if they go under the same umbrella, get service, buy new phones, get assistance, etc. It could also speed up the introduction of higher-end phones under the Tracfone terms and conditions as Verizon sells the high-end phones anyway. In theory Verizon could keep the costs the same, or even lower them since they own the towers already and would just be using their own infrastructure instead of leasing the tower space. By using their own pre-existing distribution centers/storefronts they could bypass the "normal" retailers keeping more profit for themselves while lowering costs for consumers.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Verizon only had 4 million prepaid customers before this despite having 116 million regular monthly subscribers. They've now upped that number to 25 million prepaid subscribers in total. How do they use that new power? Better phones at a lower price? Do they raise prices? Do they try to switch Tracfone users to monthly plans? We'll have to see. The mobile marketplace is getting very condensed with these mergers. T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and Tracfone have now become just two companies instead of four.

Verizon now has a total of 141 million customers (116 million monthly, 25 million prepaid) so that gives them some pretty good negotiating power with phone providers. They should be able to buy phones at well below suggested retail. How will they use that leverage? Will the savings get passed on to consumers? We'll have to see. We should be hearing fairly soon if they'll keep the Tracfone label or switch everything to Verizon Prepaid. It's going to get interesting for a bit.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

hckynut — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 14:29:45 GMT

@Ainhisg

Thank you for this info. As a long time user of Tracfone I hope this doesn't complicate the bottom line, in any aspect, for the end user.

Tracfone, for my type of use, has always been, by comparisons, very much cheaper. Along with that, as compared to my wife's much more expensive plans, much more dependable, when it comes to connecting and dropping calls inside our own home.

hckynut

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Kachina624 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 15:56:04 GMT

Call me a pessimist but I can't help feeling this does not bode well for the consumer. We've got good phones and service dirt cheap; there's no place to go but up in cost. I've never dealt with Verizon but my sister has had hell with both their land line and cell service.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Nuttmeg — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 17:00:29 GMT

@Kachina624 wrote:
Call me a pessimist but I can't help feeling this does not bode well for the consumer. We've got good phones and service dirt cheap; there's no place to go but up in cost. I've never dealt with Verizon but my sister has had hell with both their land line and cell service.

@Kachina624

I have used Verizon Bell services for many years. I found my landline service very good until they cut it off in 2019.

I have had Verizon wireless for 18 years. It is great, but expensive.

Tracfone could not move customers inro the 5G space without a partner.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

gardenman — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 17:37:44 GMT

@Kachina624 wrote:
Call me a pessimist but I can't help feeling this does not bode well for the consumer. We've got good phones and service dirt cheap; there's no place to go but up in cost. I've never dealt with Verizon but my sister has had hell with both their land line and cell service.

In theory, consumer costs could go down. You could argue they should go down. Tracfone had to buy tower use from Verizon and I suspect Verizon was making a profit on those costs which were passed on to Tracfone users. Verizon with 140+ million customers should be able to negotiate lower prices on phones than Tracfone could with 21 million customers. If Verizon moves Tracfone sales to their Verizon stores, they could reduce the retail costs associated with in-store packaging/promotion. Their cost per customer to get the customers was lower than I'd have anticipated, so there's little real financial burden there. They can move Tracfone customer support to their existing CSR teams saving them money. There's really no financial reason why the cost of Tracfone service should increase and a not unreasonable expectation that costs could decrease. If the new combined T-Mobile/Sprint starts a price war with Verizon for prepaid customers, prices could decrease substantially.

Now with that said, Verizon could still double or triple our prices and help use us to subsidize their more valued contract customers. Who knows what they'll ultimately do, but financially, there's no reason they have to increase our prices and some reasonable expectation they could lower the prices. Tracfone pays a premium for packaging phones that Verizon wouldn't have to pay if they sell the phones through their stores. A telecom analyst thinks Verizon could save $1.6 billion a year through the acquisition. Tracfone isn't just Tracfone but also about a dozen associated prepaid providers under different brands. Consolidating all of that under Verizon could save Verizon lots of money. Will it? God only knows? We'll find out in a year or two.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

SchippyLuv — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:10:00 GMT

I just hope it gives the consumer access to good prices on higher end, newer phones. I'm tired of being forced to buy phones that have been on the market for a year.

For instance, the newest LG Stylo is the 5 which has been out for a year. That compares with the Stylo 6 which we can't have from Tracfone for any price.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Kachina624 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:25:51 GMT

@gardenman I decided to buy another year of service, which I've always gotten for $50. I went to the TracFone website, fiddled around but could not see the $50 deal any longer. I just want service, no talk or text time.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

SouthernBee — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:14:04 GMT

@gardenman : I have tracfone and the LG premier pro.My date to purchase more minutes, data, text- 10/10/20. Do I need to wait until this date or purchase now?Yikes- just looked at the website and the year plan is $125 this is more than what I paid for the phone.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Kachina624 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:15:56 GMT

@SouthernBee wrote:
@Ainhisg @Kachina624 @SchippyLuv @gardenman : I have tracfone and the LG premier pro.My date to purchase more minutes, data, text- 10/10/20. Do I need to wait until this date or purchase now?

@SouthernBee You can purchase anytime up to and including 10/10, just dont wait any later or you'll lose service and your number.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

SouthernBee — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:28:58 GMT

@Kachina624 : Thank you. I just checked the plans and for a year of service $125. I had hoped for a cheaper rate.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Kachina624 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:41:22 GMT

@SouthernBee As I mentioned in my previous post, there has always been a way to get a year of service for $50. But I couldn't get it to work today. If I can't get that, I'd just buy the cheapest phone and use the minutes on my present phone.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

hckynut — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:42:29 GMT

@SouthernBee

Unless you are in love with your current LG, you might consider buying a new phone here or hsn. Just a thought as I think for $125 you would have several choices of good phones.

hckynut

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

cowboy sam — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:15:48 GMT

@gardenman

This could be interesting to see what Verizon....will it or won't do

make changes in how Tracfones can be sold on QVC and HSN.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

gardenman — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:21:17 GMT

Whatever you're seeing now isn't related to the sale as it won't be completed for a year or so. Tracfone is still running Tracfone for now.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

SouthernBee — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:39:17 GMT

@hckynut : I wanted to use this phone for another year instead of starting over and learn something new. But the $$$ will make a difference.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

songbird — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:51:02 GMT

I purchased an unlocked phone though Amazon when the Samsung 9 came out. I have that phone. I hunted around for a carrier and I picked Verizon. I never had any customer service issues with them. have never had a tracfone. Have always purchased unlocked phones from Amazon.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

Ainhisg — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:55:09 GMT

@SouthernBee @Kachina624 , if you only want to add service days (365), this is the way to do it. I've included screen shots below. Add one item (I chose texts, because it's the cheapest option to add), and then on the next page, is a choice to add other features including 365 days of service. So you would get 1000 texts and 365 service days for $60. Or if you choose minutes, you would get 500 minutes and 365 service days for $65. @SouthernBee , if you need minutes/texts/data besides service days, buying a new phone is the cheapest way to go. Maybe you could buy the same brand of phone that you have now to make the transition easier.

Re: Verizon buys Tracfone

SouthernBee — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 22:06:30 GMT

@Ainhisg : Thanks for the information. Researching the phones and trying to decide. I just purchased a new case and screen protectors probably my loss because the options look like they are larger.