Verizon Wireless Expects Slight Revenue Dilution From Family Mobile Data Plans

One major reason Verizon Wireless is launching family or multi-device mobile data plans in the summer of 2012 is that “we have kind of constrained the marketplace now around connecting more devices because everybody thinks, well, if I connect that device, I now have to buy an additional data plan with that that has its own tiered pricing with it,” Fran Shammo, Verizon Communications CFO says.

“If I can add as many devices as I want and share that data plan, that is a lot more efficient from a family share perspective, from a small-business perspective,” Shammo says. “And I think at least where I sit and I look at that, I say to myself, okay, there is a large ramp of devices out there that, especially when you think about families, they are not connecting those devices because
of the incremental cost in the model we have today.”

But Verizon believes it is “not going to take a huge revenue dilution” when it launches the plan. That probably means a belief that average revenue per unit might dip, but that more units will be sold.