América Móvil has released their 2018 earnings report. Worldwide they gained customers and earnings were up. But US subscriber numbers for the TracFone brands fell again.
Total US subscribers at the end of 2018 for TracFone, et al, were 21.69 million, down 1.44 million (6.2%) year over year and 105 thousand quarter over quarter.
The bulk of the loses were from the Safelink Lifeline service with finished 2018 with 2.87 million customers, a loss of 1.35 million customers (31.9%) for the year.
TracFone didn't break out numbers for its other brands. TracFone, Total Wireless, Simple Mobile, Net10, Telcel America, Walmart Family Mobile, GoSmart and PagePlus combined ended 2018 with 9.64 million subscribers, down 541 thousand (-5.3%) from Q4 2017.
The subscriber loses don't seem to be hurting the bottom line. 2018 US revenues were 2 billion, up 1.6% from a year ago. ARPU (average monthly revenue per user) increased from $24 to $26 and average monthly churn fell from 4.6% to 4%.
Source https://s22.q4cdn.com/604986553/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2018/q4/Q4-2018-Quarterly-Report.pdf
I'm considering getting off Verizon due to the ridiculous 40$ "line access fee." that goes on top of their regular plans which turns 2 gigs and unlimited talk/text into 75$ a month when it's advertised as 35$ a month. I don't utilize more than 3gigs in a month, and I don't text/call super often. I believe I'm a low data user that'd benefit from these "pay as you go plans." I also don't need super fast data, just fast enough to play Pokemon Go.
I still need a network that utilize the Verizon Wireless CDMA network as they have uncontested coverage where I live and my current phone is already a CDMA phone. So I've got a few questions and would appreciate if you'd take the time to help me escape the dreaded line access fee.
América Móvil, operates TracFone, NET10, Total Wireless, Straight Talk, Simple Mobile, Page Plus, Safelink, and probably more. As far as I can tell, all non-Verizon Verizon network providers are owned by América Móvil. Currently thinking Total Wireless.
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Are any of these América Móvil providers appreciably different from one and other? (aside from the deals they provide)
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Do any of them have any hidden fees similar to Verizon's line access fees?
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Can phones using América Móvil & co send and receive group text messages? I ask b/c a friend of mine uses a basic Tracphone and we can't tell if that's a limitation of the basic phone, or of Tracphone itself.
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Can I keep my same Verizon phone number?
Thank you all for your help!
