T-Mobile is buying Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile for up to $1.35B | Hacker News Reader

T-Mobile is buying Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile for up to $1.35B

theverge.com

63 pointspgrote57 comments

Quick Google appears to show they have 3 million subscribers, which makes the average cost per customer to be $450. Given its a virtual network, beyond brand value Ryan provides, who owns 25% of the company and will remain the brand’s spokesperson — what other assets are being transferred beyond a brand and portfolio of subscribers?

If long term, it’s basically a subscriber list, seems like value of a virtual US telecommunications subscriber is roughly $45 a year — assuming sell is a 10x multiple. How would someone estimate this value beyond this specific sell? Even more abstract, is there a source for estimating value of a customer for a given market?

I use Mint. The only reason I use it is because they are a price leader for the whole industry. They run regular promotions and I get service for about 8 bucks a month. I have been cycling through their new customer promotions for years. My actual phone number is with a voip service so all the numbers I get from Mint are burners.

$450 to acquire me when I was already paying wholesale rates to t-mobile? Wow, what a scam.

The number of people working the new customer promotions like this is probably insignificant.

That sounds like a lot of work...

It is not. Every 6 months, I type back in my credit card number tap a button to load the eSim. Literally nothing else I have to do. I also can let my service lapse when I am not in the country.

Dish bought Boost from Sprint/T-Mobile for $1.4B with around 9M customers, but that was also part of a sweetheart deal to get the T-Mobile/Sprint merger approved. $1.35B for 3M customers is basically 3x more expensive, but I think there are some differences.

1. It's not a sweetheart deal. You can't really compare T-Mobile being willing to throw away a billion or two in order to close a deal worth maybe $90B.

2. It's a 61% stock purchase. T-Mobile's stock has been flying high and even if you're bullish on T-Mobile US as a company, it's now worth 14% more than Verizon and 36% more than AT&T. T-Mobile has some advantages in its spectrum portfolio and its 5G lead, but Verizon and AT&T also have a lot of owned fiber that T-Mobile doesn't have and a lead on rural coverage. The point is that I think T-Mobile's stock is likely a bit high and that means that they're partly buying Mint at a discount (by trading slightly over-valued stock instead of cash). Maybe the real value of the deal is only $1-1.1B.

3. It comes with Ryan Reynolds as a spokesperson. Boost didn't come with that.

4. Boost's 9M customers came with the costs of an extensive retail presence. Mint's 3M customers come from a low-touch model that saves a lot of money. T-Mobile is adding 3M customers without adding a large retail cost.

5. This also gives T-Mobile a new go-to-market - the low-touch, store-less go-to-market. That's valuable and they're able to do it with a brand that has gotten traction in that area and without risking their T-Mobile or Metro brands.

6. It's a differentiated offering - specifically offering both limited data plans (which they don't want to emphasize on their T-Mobile or Metro brands) and multi-month or yearly prepaid plans.

7. Mint seems to be a growing brand while Boost was already having problems when T-Mobile was selling it off. T-Mobile sold 9M customers to Dish, but even after Dish bought Republic Wireless, Ting Mobile, and Gen Mobile, they're down to 8M customers. In the video, Reynolds talks about being on T-Mobile's network as a key to their success. It's a bit of puffery, but being on Sprint's network definitely left a lot of Boost customers unhappy and hurt the brand. The point being that buying a brand that has a good reputation and a customer base that seems happy is more valuable than buying a brand that customers aren't happy with that has really high churn.

It does seem a bit expensive, but I'm guessing some of these factors went into the price.

I used to love Mint, but since the population boom in Central Florida it is entirely unusable due to being a low priority network. This means on many occasions you will have almost no bandwidth, I am talking cannot stream Spotify bad. The worst IMO is traffic jams, the one time I really want to listen to music and it will start cutting out.

If you're downtown there is a 80% chance you will not even be able to load a website or youtube, its basically unusable.

I know T-Mobile is working to up capacity, but I had to switch to Google Fi to get any real reliability.

Check out visible, which is a Verizon sub brand. 25 bucks if you are ok with being deprioritized, 35 if you want high priority. I think it’s the next best deal on the market after Mint, and if t-mobile doesn’t work well in your area, you aren’t getting much value anyway.

Exactly the path I took -- Mint was nice enough early, deprioritization became too frustrating, Visible deprioritized wasn't better, Visible w/ priority has been acceptable.

We use Visible in my household - the deprioritized service level didn't work great but the prioritized price has worked great.

It should be easy to attract existing Boost customers.

Boost Mobile has been screwing their customers for MANY weeks. They cannot even accept payment through their website and Reddit is full of customer horror stories about the total lack of customer support. The official Boost explanation is that they suffered a "technical problem" that they hope to fix "real soon". In the meantime, customers are being advised that payments must be made in person at a Boost store - if you can find one. The Boost stores will not accept a Boost payment card but they do add an additional service fee.

Boost initially sent out a text message telling customers that payment would not be required until the problem was resolved. Instead, they provided a week of free service and then turned off the phone without warning. Considering the protracted length of time this situation has existed, it is surprising that a class action lawsuit against Boost has not been launched.

Stay away from Boost Mobile!

Just looked up how much of the company Reynolds actually owns. About 20% - 25%.

So he's getting roughly around a $300 million payday out of this. That's roughly double his current reported net worth. Not bad at all.

Like 50 cent and George Clooney their business ventures (Vitamin Water, Casamigoas) make them way more than music or acting.

Was Paul Newman (Newman's Own) the originator of this type of thing?

I would imagine not. Anyone who makes a significant amount of money is encouraged to park it in various money-making vehicles. Restaurants, bars, sports teams, etc.

I think Newman is unique in that his major venture uses its profits for charity. I don't think Newman himself made much money from the endeavor. By design. He set it up as a way to generate money for charitable giving.

Well, it can't be cheap to allow Upper East Side socialite Serena van der Woodsen (played by his wife Blake Lively) to maintain the lifestyle to which she's accustomed ;-)

How much did he initially invest in mint?

"we have no plans to change our $15 per month pricing"

So nice of them to exclude mentioning "all plans". Ugh, here comes a huge rate hike. I'm paid up until November. $30/month for "unlimited" was a great deal. I am guessing it will soon be back to $85.

This is the first time Ryan Reynolds has made me angry. *shakes fist*.

I doubt that they'll want to change the $30/mo + taxes/fees you're paying for "unlimited" (really 35GB) service. T-Mobile already offers a $40/mo unlimited plan on Metro with taxes and fees included and that's without the annual pre-payment. As I noted in another comment, Mint values the annual pre-payment at over $10/mo compared to quarterly payments. I think it's reasonable to say that $360/year ($30/mo) seems roughly equivalent to $40-45/mo on a monthly basis. Plus, taxes and fees increase the price of the plan such that it's probably in the $35-40/mo range.

Visible is already offering $25/mo unlimited service (on promotion down from $30/mo) without annual pre-payment via a similar low-touch model (and owned by Verizon) and Visible doesn't charge taxes/fees. It seems unlikely that T-Mobile would want to raise prices on your plan when you're already paying for a year in advance and you're already paying 30-60% more than Visible is charging and Visible doesn't even require annual pre-payment for that rate.

> I am guessing it will soon be back to $85.

This is literally FUD. T-Mobile already offers $40 unlimited (with taxes/fees included) on a higher-touch Metro plan that doesn't require annual pre-payment. Even a single line T-Mobile Magenta plan is $70/mo. This sentence is simply FUD.

You might like your deal, but it's not that great a deal by objective standards. Visible is cheaper and doesn't require annual pre-payment.

This is T-Mobile wanting a low-touch brand similar to Visible (which would be even cheaper for your if Verizon works well in your area).

Visible requires a new expensive phone

In case you dont know, there are other budget providers like Tello that will send you a sim online if you have an unlocked phone.

I've been using Ting for awhile, it does similar.

There's a bunch of these but if you ride with them you need to be ready to move to a new one when the time comes; since they're all just resellers that time comes eventually.

Yeah, that is part of why I never switched; I figured it was too good to be true.

Ryan Reynolds is handling the color green better in real life than in the movies.

I always figured a cheap, high-quality mobile service provider couldn't last but I'm still a little sad to see the end of the good times looming closer. I assume it's just a matter of time before t-mobile starts squeezing.

Are they that cheap? People keep emphasizing Mint's cheapness, but it doesn't seem that cheap.

Visible charges $25/mo for unlimited service. Mint charges $30/mo for 35GB "unlimited" service with annual pre-payment or $40/mo with quarterly pre-payment - plus taxes and fees which likely raise the price $38-40 on the annual plan and around $50 on the quarterly plan. Visible's plan is actually unlimited, even if deprioritized. Mint is deprioritized always and then throttled at 35GB.

Mint's $15 4GB plan (probably around $20 with taxes/fees) is cheaper, but we're talking about saving $5/mo for a 4GB plan instead of unlimited and you have to pre-pay for a year in advance. If you're pinching every penny and want to make sure you're on Wifi all the time, yes it is a bit cheaper. Personally, I'd grab Visible's $25/mo unlimited (with taxes and fees included) and not worry.

Given what Verizon is charging with Visible, it doesn't seem like T-Mobile will start squeezing. Mint's pricing is good, but it's not some unheard of deal. Visible's unlimited is barely more expensive than Mint's 4GB plan once you account for taxes and fees. Visible's unlimited is cheaper than Mint's 4GB plan if you're doing quarterly billing with Mint - Visible with charge you $25 while Mint will charge you $25 + taxes/fees.

Don't forget the "high-quality" part.

The $15/mo plan was actually $201/12 months for me when I renewed in September, so a little under $17/mo, prepaid. This is the regular price, BTW, not a promo price.

I haven't really looked at what the best unlimited plan is. I'll look at visible if I need that.

(Last time I checked there were no "unlimited" plans unlimited enough for regular usage... e.g., they all slowed down to a mostly-useless level after a day or two's worth of data.)

> Given what Verizon is charging with Visible, it doesn't seem like T-Mobile will start squeezing.

telcos don't squeeze because they have to. They squeeze because they can.

Not so much as an anti-trust blink these days.

They’re buying a MVNO that runs on their network. All they’re doing is buying a consumer brand. This has little to no effect on competition, all Mint customers were already on the T-Mobile network.

They were competitors to T-Mobile. They offered lowered prices, even though they did use their network.

This has direct effect on competition, T-Mobile can raise prices or run it into the ground.

I don't disagree, but as someone who uses T-Mobile, the only thing they have going for them is their cheap prices and freebies. And even then they're barely worth it. If prices rise their customer base will disappear.

I am also a T-Mobile customer, but more companies is better even if don't use them. For me paying few dollars more is nothing and we get priority on the T-Mobile network. However, some people might really need that few dollars, few bucks here and there add up.

A big MVNO has far more power to negotiate lower rates for use of the network than the MVNO's individual customers do. And the MVNO can provide far better customer service. And have better computer security for customer data. And present its customers with fewer dark patterns. And...

Looks like T-Mobile's found a fix for those "problems".

This is the cycle of MVNOs. They are selling a commodity with tight margins, are almost always dependent on a single network, and when money gets tight, they sell to the network they're dependent on.

I've never seen an MVNO do a very successful switch to another network, and if you can't switch networks, you have less negotiating power than consumers.

The only one I ever saw do a switch was Republic Wireless (very early on they were on Sprint IIRC, and then slid over to Verizon or something, I wasn't paying much attention) but that has a whole separate VOIP over phone/wireless confusion to deal with.

Yeah, Republic Wireless was started by Bandwidth.com, a registered CLEC and leading provider of wholesale telephone services. It's not surprising that they'd have the wherewithal to build their MVNO with switching in mind, or that they owned the voice calling portion.

Apparently it was spun off in 2016, and is now owned by Dish. And looks like they switched to ATT and carrier based calling. I'm just summarizing wikipedia though; I don't know if there were SIM replacements or if the SIMs were network independent so they "just" had to have a different network allow attachment.

I used them for a bit right after they switched, and iirc it was a shitshow technically, this was BEFORE everyone had wificalling as an option, and the phones had to be relatively specific Android models, and there were some older ones you had to send back to get a new one or you had to limp along on the old network.

I didn't care because I was 99% wifi at the time anyway.

Do you work for the CRTC?

At least it's T-Mobile, not one of the more offensive wireless providers.

I wonder if Ryan will still be in the commercials?

The article notes that, yes, he will remain as spokesperson.

his celebrity is certainly a significant part of the company's value

I guess there will be so no more good deals from Mint, like unlocked Google Pixel 7 Pro for $580.

I dunno, T-mobile still does a lot of good deals. They were just throwing out free lines to anyone who asked a couple weeks ago and frequently do BOGO iPhone deals all the time.

They also seem to have the best deals out of the big 3 (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T) for people 55+. AT&T and Verizon have 55+ plans but only sell them in Florida. T-Mobile's 55+ plans aren't limited like that.

Deals are still good, but not as good as before T-Mobile and Sprint merge. There are not more unlimited $25/month post paid plans.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Ryan Reynolds...they know they can just invest in anything and get an exit based off their notoriety alone

guess I can't begrudge them, the movie biz is dying, they might as well pimp out their personal brands while they can

Reynolds also pimps booze like Clooney and Brian Cranston...and people actually fall for it

Quentin Tarantino Toothpaste? sure, why not

I think Ryan Reynolds was more careful than most about protecting his personal brand, AFAIK he didn’t promote crypto and that got even Larry David (though his framing of it does give him a rather funny out).

I’m more inclined to trust personal brands than corporate brands as there is an actual person who will personally receive shit if there is fallout. Famous people like Matt Daymon and Tom Brady are going to have a hard time forgetting what happened as there will always be someone around to remind them whenever they get a chance.

Clearly you're unfamiliar with Mint Mobile. It's by far the best mobile company I've used. Ridiculously good prices, same speed/network as T-mobile, dead simple website, and you'll even get a pre-recorded message from Ryan Reynolds if you're not using your plan to its full potential telling you that you can save yourself money by downgrading to a cheaper plan.

Reynolds seems to be doing some pretty cool things with his branding power. Him co-partnering to own Wrexham AFC is epic!

Coming to a largely startup/business news website and complaining about the investments that celebrities make doesn’t make a ton of sense. These investments are better when made by a “no-name” individual?

> Coming to a largely startup/business news website and complaining about the investments that celebrities make doesn’t make a ton of sense

nor does responding to a complaint about the investments that celebrities make, but here you are

the site is called "Hacker News" btw, not "Business News"

I've been using Mint for years but tired of seeing Ryan Reynolds smug face on the junk mail/spam I get in the mail. I'm already a customer, stop sending me corny postcards that go right in the fire or garbage, its an ecological waste and I could care less who you are (I can't name one show/movie he's in).

Van Wilder. You should check it out.

thanks, i like that era of movies

Aviation gin is quite good, at least he's smart enough to hawk something decent.

I had some on a plane flight once and it wasn't good. From one of those tiny bottles. I might try some from a real bottle one day, but only if RR buys it for me.

It really comes down to where you use it, it's amazing in a clover club and some other cocktails. I wouldn't use Aviation in a gin and tonic where you want some juniper flavor, I'd get a proper london dry for that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com