U.S. Net Mobile Account Growth Now Driven by IoT

Of the 5.38 million net account additions gained the top-four U.S. mobile service providers, about 1.79 million were of the postpaid smartphone type that are prized by carriers. In other words, about 66 percent of the net account gains were devices of other types, such as tablets, connected cars or machine-to-machine links. Included in that bucket are wholesale accounts, such as net adds by mobile virtual network operators.

One common feature of all those types of connections is lower average revenue per account than smartphones represent.

Note that connected car and IoT accounts represented about 57 percent of the total retail net additions in the third quarter of 2016, vastly more numerous than the 10 percent of tablet adds.

To the extent that MVNOs continue to exist, it is as niche specialists, many serving credit-challenged or language and culture minorities.

source: Chetan Sharma

source: Strategy Analytics

Verizon	AT&T	T-Mobile	Sprint
140,100,000	130,400,000	65,500,000	58,800,000
Operator Brands
	Cricket Wireless	GoSmart Mobile	Boost Mobile
		MetroPCS	Virgin Mobile
America Movil US MVNO Brands 25.7 million subs
Tracfone	Tracfone	Tracfone	Tracfone
Net10	Net10	Net10	Net10
StraighTalk	StraightTalk	StraightTalk	StraightTalk
Page Plus Cellular		Simple Mobile
Total Wireless		Telcel America
Other MVNOs
GreatCall	Consumer Cellular	Consumer Cellular	Republic Wireless
Red Pocket Mobile	H2O Wireless	Ultra Mobile	Ting
Selectel Wireless	Airvoice Wireless	Ting	Credo Mobile
ROK Mobile	Red Pocket Mobile	Lyca Mobile	iWireless (Kroger)
		Red Pocket Mobile	Red Pocket Mobile
		TPO Mobile	TPO Mobile
		Univision Mobile (Ultra)	Kajeet
		Family Mobile	Text Now
		Project Fi	Project Fi

source: MVNO Blog