Verizon acquires low-income carrier Tracfone for $6.25B

Verizon is increasing its customer base by pushing into the low-income cellular market, by announcing an acquisition of major virtual mobile network Tracfone for more than $6 billion.

Announced on Monday, the agreement with America Movil will see it transfer ownership of Tracfone over to Verizon, upon completion. As Tracfone is the largest prepaid mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in the United States, this means Verizon will gain a considerable 21 million direct subscribers.As an MNVO, Tracfone pays other carriers to use their networks, something it already does with Verizon for more than 13 million subscribers. After completion, Verizon hopes to extend its network to the remaining subscribers, as well as to further use its 4G LTE and 5G networks for those customers.

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