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T-Mobile Is Buying Mint Mobile For $1.35 Billion (theverge.com) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-joke dept.
T-Mobile is buying Mint Mobile, the budget-friendly mobile carrier that's partially owned by Ryan Reynolds. The Verge reports: In a post published on Wednesday, T-Mobile announced that the deal's valued at up to $1.35 billion and comes as T-Mobile looks to build out its prepaid phone offering. The acquisition should close later this year and involves a 39 percent cash and 61 percent stock purchase of Mint's parent company, Ka'ena Corporation. The price could change, however, as it depends on Mint's performance.

Once the deal closes, Mint founders David Glickman and Rizwan Kassim will join T-Mobile to continue managing the brand, which T-Mobile says "will generally operate as a separate business unit." Meanwhile, Reynolds will also remain a part of Mint's branding, as T-Mobile says he will "continue on in his creative role on behalf of Mint." "I never dreamt I'd own a wireless company and I certainly never dreamt I'd sell it to T-Mobile," Reynolds said in a tweet. "Life is strange and I'm incredibly proud and grateful."

As noted by T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday, T-Mobile will retain the price of Mint's cheapest phone plan at $15 per month. The deal also includes Ka'ena's other companies, including Ultra Mobile, a prepaid carrier that offers international calling, and Plum, a wholesale wireless solutions provider. [...] By purchasing Mint, T-Mobile may be looking to claw back the customers it lost when it sold Boost Mobile to Dish as part of its merger with Sprint.
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T-Mobile Is Buying Mint Mobile For $1.35 Billion More

T-Mobile Is Buying Mint Mobile For $1.35 Billion

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  • Mint-T mobile (Score:5, Funny)

    by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @05:45PM (#63374217)

    Has a nice fresh ring to it.,

  • I really hope Ryan is just pranking T-mobile for PR

  • I just felt a great disturbance in the force...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Seems bad (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @06:11PM (#63374305)

      Why do they need another one?

      Getting rid of competition.

    • Re:Seems bad (Score:5, Interesting)

      by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @06:22PM (#63374331)

      Doesn't T-Mo already own two pre-paid mobile companies?

      There is no such thing as a "Pre-Paid mobile company". There are mobile companies (real and MVNOs). Each company can offer pre-paid or post paid services (or both).

      They have [...] MetroPCS. Why do they need another one?

      They (or rather, Sprint) used to have Boost Mobile, at the time the largest (if not the largest) MVNO of the USoA , but had to surrender it to Dish as qa condition to the merger. That left a hole in their portfolio. they are trying to fill that hole with Mint.

        As an infrastructure company, should they be running prepaid MVNOs that compete with independent MVNOs at all?

      There is no such thing as "infrastructure companies"* (at least, not in the USoA). MVNOs are a latter (much, much latter) addition to the mobile game. MVNOs try to serve market segments that are unnatended by the "real" (non-virtual) carriers, either because they are not interested, or they do not know how to reach them, or they do not even know that market exists.

      The dream/exit strategy of most/all MVNOs is to prove that their target market was indeed interesting, and being acquired by a "real" Mobile operator

      * Technically, Clearwire tried that strategy in the USoA, and failed

      • MVNOs try to serve market segments that are unnatended by the "real" (non-virtual) carriers, either because they are not interested, or they do not know how to reach them, or they do not even know that market exists.

        MVNOs exist because carriers want to pad their ARPU numbers (for Wall St.), and selling one big lump of wholesale service to "Crazy Jimbo's Wireless Inc." looks better than having a few thousand customers each paying $25/mo for their services.

    • Doesn't T-Mo already own two pre-paid mobile companies?

      I doubt they own two. They probably own many more than that. T-Mobile is a holding company which has some 12 large carriers under them and god knows what else. It's literally how they enter markets (T-Mobile USA is the result of Deutsche Telekom buying VoiceStream).

      Honestly it's borderline impossible to know what T-Mobile is or isn't anymore. E.g. Deutsche Telekom (the T) owns T-Mobile USA, but does not own T-Mobile Netherlands which is instead owned by two private equity firms. You'll need a PhD in merger

    • Why do they need another one?

      Usually? So they can ruin it in some way (in most cases, via deprioritization) to limit cannibalizing their main brand.

    • Why do they need another one?

      They ran out of their own data to leak.

  • Oh goody, more market consolidation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @05:57PM (#63374261)
    I'm sure this won't have any effect on consumer prices or inflation, since only interests rates can do that...

    • I'm sure this won't have any effect on consumer prices or inflation, since only interests rates can do that...

      MVNOs aren't really competitors per se, because they're just reselling service purchased at wholesale rates from their host network. The actual loss of competition happened when T-Mobile gobbled up Sprint, and that ship has sailed.

      • To use an analogy, it's like saying you're competing with Walmart by buying everything your mom & pop grocery store sells, from Sam's Club.

      • Truthfully, Sprint's network was pretty shitty. The Sprint customers probably got a good deal being gobbled up by T-mobile. I don't how exactly how the network was just before t-mobile gobbled them up, but I managed a fleet of a few hundred phones for a landscape company. back during the Sprint/Nextel merger. The company used them cause of the Nextel PTT feature. Even the newer phones that came along post merger that could use sprint's CDMA network and Nextel's iDen network had spotty coverage.

    • I'm sure this won't have any effect on consumer prices or inflation, since only interests rates can do that...

      More money chasing fewer goods and services is what causes inflation. Which is why we have Bidenflation.

    • Hey! I am sure that they *promised* that this would be *good* for consumers....

  • ... in their hearts/portfolio since the merger with Sprint.

    So, it makes sense that they tried to fill said hole with an acquisition, and the deal was posible with Mint.

  • No, it is all about stopping a new player from entering the market.

    • MVNO aren't really new players. They use t-mobiles towers already. Tmobile sells the lines, Mint resells them as a middleman and pockets a few dollars, but ultimately those customers are already with tmobile, just via a middleman. Tmobile is only getting a few % more money per subscriber from this by removing the middleman, but they already GET that sub revenue in majority.

    • No, it is all about stopping a new player from entering the market.

      An 8 year old "new player"? That is if you consider Mint to be founded in 2015 when it split out from Ultra Mobile which was in fact founded in 2011 so a 12 year old "new player".

  • Stop following me! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @06:56PM (#63374399) Homepage

    I have been a T-Mobile customer since they purchased Metro... many years ago. I just switched to Mint at the beginning of the year. Now T-Mobile buys them!

    If anyone is wondering, the service is the same (Mint uses T-Mobile towers) but the cost is significantly less. I have not had any reason to deal with customer service: everything for Mint is online (web or app), and well documented. E-SIM activation is immediate (just enter your ESN), SIM took a couple days to arrive by mail.

    • I have been a T-Mobile customer since they purchased Metro... many years ago. I just switched to Mint at the beginning of the year. Now T-Mobile buys them!

      If anyone is wondering, the service is the same (Mint uses T-Mobile towers) but the cost is significantly less. I have not had any reason to deal with customer service: everything for Mint is online (web or app), and well documented. E-SIM activation is immediate (just enter your ESN), SIM took a couple days to arrive by mail.

      I've been through the whole cycle.

      I got T-mobile (prepaid) when it was a goo alternative to Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T.

      Then I got Mint when it was a good alternative to T-mobile.

      Sigh ...

    • If you're looking for alternatives, this hasn't been updated for 2023 yet but it still has solid information: https://airtable.com/shrraH105... [airtable.com]

      Also, some general information about how MVNO is prioritized by provider: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoCon... [reddit.com]

  • If I may make a suggestion... (Score:3)

    by Sleeping Kirby ( 919817 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @07:27PM (#63374465)
    Before I moved out of the US, I actually switched to Ting as a cell provider. My monthly bill (because I don't talk a lot and only really text) ended up being like 10USD a month. They had good customer service and, when I had to cancel because I was moving out of the US, they didn't hassle me or hard sell me to stay or "just transfer it to a family member.". It was like "If I may ask, why are cancelling with us?" "I'm moving back to Taiwan." "*Laughs* well, When that's a good reason. Alright, your plan will end "

    • I used to be on Ting. I had to move away from them about three months ago, because they STILL can't do e-SIMs! I moved to Mint Mobile and it's great. I hope it stays great when it's owned by T-Mobile.

  • I had Mint for last 3 years for the whole fam. It was good and cheap for most part.

  • It'd be nice to know if Mint customers will get the FULL T-Mobile coverage area once the merger goes through.... Currently, Mint does NOT offer ANY coverage in Alaska, Canada, or Mexico, while T-Mobile does... It would be nice to at least get Alaska. You can see this one their respective coverage maps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jhon ( 241832 )

      Doesn't it already provide "FULL" T-Mobile coverage? It just doesn't include leased coverage? Non-T-Mobile towers that allow T-Mobile to connect, but none of it's MVNOs?

      I'm pretty sure there are no T-Mobile towers in Alaska -- , but they are leased from one of the local companies and ATT. MVNO's wont benefit from that relationship/lease.

  • The correct term is eliminate and dominate. This does nothing for them except put more money in the pockets of executives. People will lose jobs, the market loses competition.

    Fuck TMobile.

  • Hopefully Ryan Reynolds will use some of the money he gets to purchase Senators, Ottawa Senators that is. (Reynolds and his partners seem to actually be able to run professional sports teams.)
  • Also a good way to buy into a market that isn't interesting in the branding/marketing of Boost.
  • Not very happy with this. I was a Sprint customer from 2008 to 2016. Even though I was not a customers of Sprint for well over 4 years, I was still part of the hack on TMobile. Why the f* would you keep my sensitive into in you damn database, and not have them properly secured? Now the shit comes out, been happy Mint customer for over year, guess time to move to something else.

  • I was there when dereg was passed in '96 (working for a Baby Bell). We knew than it was an excuse, and that the big fish would swallow the little... with the result of a very few huge players, no real competition*, and no regulation.

    We were right.

    * You think your plan is good? Let me assure you that each of the big fish has an entire department, that works stupid hours (50? 60? 70?/wk) coming up with plans that *look* good on paper, but when you buy into them, you pay more.You *always* pay more.

  • I'm surprised at how many people you see online, complaining about how sad they are about this, and how much they'll miss Ryan Reynolds' quirky company. As if he wasn't any more than a talking head pretending to be deadpool and was actively in the back, making things work.

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