2020-2025 United States Analysis and Forecast on the Prepaid Wireless Market - Featuring Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile Among Others - ResearchAndMarkets.com

The "Prepaid Wireless in United States: Market Analysis and Forecast 2020 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This research evaluates the prepaid wireless market in the United States including major provider analysis and service assessment, technologies involved in prepaid service delivery, and assessment of the future of prepaid communications, content, and commerce. The report also provides forecasts for 2020 through 2025.

The report also analyzes major MVNO companies and offerings. The report also provides a view into the future of prepaid wireless and market forecasts through 2025 including subscribers and Revenue by Voice vs. Data vs. VAS and by Connectivity Type.

Market Insights

Prepaid wireless service providers in the United States have become increasingly competitive in recent years as they evolve offerings to be more on par with post-paid service features and plans. For example, Verizon Wireless now offers prepaid family plans, unlimited plans, and support for BYOD whereas this was not the case just a few years ago.

We anticipate significant upheaval in the prepaid wireless market as a result of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger. We have already witnessed some minor changes, such as the rebranding of Metro PCS to Metro by T-Mobile. There is a strong reason to believe that the combined company will make more significant changes post-merger including rationalization of pricing, feature functionality, and ultimately brand consolidation. There is also the likelihood of substantively higher prices in the long-term.

In the intermediate term, there will be a considerable impact on the non-subsidiary prepaid brands that rely upon a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) model for service delivery. The combined MVNOs supported by the two companies will find themselves in a weaker negotiating position regarding deal terms. T-Mobile subsidiaries will likely evolve to a purely T-Mobile.

Along the way, these subsidiaries are expected to receive better feature functionality, support, and differentiation as a Mobile Network Operator(MNO) owned brand. The overall effect will be to move the combined company towards a consolidated prepaid wireless business unit with enhanced profitability and more competitive against prepaid wireless offerings from AT&T and Verizon.

The future of prepaid wireless communications will depend on more than just carrier-centric applications, communications, content, and commerce. For example, prepaid will be an important aspect of many next-generation services that are provided by a variety of third-party service companies that do not wish to offer a prepaid option, thus relying upon wireless carrier billing via prepay. Growth in prepaid wireless service will also depend on the extent to which next-generation services such as virtual reality is generally supported on a pre-pay basis. This is to say that prepaid customers must have access to wireless data plans that put them on par with postpaid in terms of both bandwidth and low-latency required for acceptable end-user quality of experience.

While many emerging applications will be offered by Over-the-Top (OTT) service providers, we strongly recommend that MNOs offer their own branded/controlled Value-added Service (VAS) applications. The OTT application business model has caused data payload (e.g. apps that use data) to become increasingly more valuable to consumers than data itself, which is rapidly becoming a marginalized commodity. With this development, VAS applications become much more important to network operators.

With the ever-increasing commoditization of carrier core services (mostly voice and messaging), there will be a growing dependence on VAS applications for initially top-line revenue growth (as data growth tapers off and margins are squeezed) and then for margin growth as bearer services become a cost-plus commodity. Prepaid wireless service providers must also provide their own VAS apps to remain competitive, even if it necessitates them offering those apps on an OTT basis themselves.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Introduction

3 United States Communication Service Providers

3.1 Wireless Carrier Offerings

3.2 USA Prepaid Wireless Market Handset Providers

3.3 Drivers for Growth in Wireless Prepaid Services

3.4 Other Factors and Outlook

4 United States Prepaid Wireless Carrier Service Provider Analysis

5 Sprint and T-Mobile Merger Impact on Prepaid Wireless

5.1.1 Impact on USA Carrier Ecosystem as a Whole

5.1.2 Impact on Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO)

5.1.3 Impact on Prepaid Subsidiaries: Boost, Metro PCS, and Virgin Mobile

6 Mobile Virtual Network Operators

7 USA Prepaid Wireless Forecasts 2020 - 2025

7.1 Wireless Prepaid Subscriber Forecast by Connectivity Type 2020 - 2025

7.2 Prepaid Wireless Revenue Forecast by Type, and Connectivity 2020 - 2025

7.3 Monthly ARPU Forecast 2020 - 2025

7.4 Prepaid Wireless Service Provider Market Share 2020 - 2025

8 Future of Prepaid Wireless: Value-added Services

9 Conclusions and Recommendations

10 Appendix: MVNO Strategies

10.1 MVNO Types

10.2 MVNO Models

10.3 Additional Case Study Analysis of USA MVNO Companies

11 Appendix: LTE Strategies

11.1 VoLTE Operation

11.2 VoLTE Advantages for Mobile Operators 1

Companies Mentioned Include

• AT&T
• Black Wireless
• Boost Mobile
• Cellular Abroad
• Consumer Cellular
• EcoMobile
• Freedompop
• Google FI
• GoSmart Mobile
• GreatCall
• Hayai Mobile
• KidsConnect
• Liberty Wireless
• Lycamobile
• Metro by T-Mobile
• Mint Mobile
• NET10
• Page Plus Cellular
• Payless Cellular
• Red Pocket Mobile
• Republic Wireless
• Simple Mobile
• Straight Talk
• T-Mobile
• Tello
• Ting Mobile
• Verizon
• Virgin Mobile USA
• Walmart Family Mobile
• Zing Wireless

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