SurgePays, Inc. Readies Launch Of Linkup Mobile
SurgePays, Inc (SURG), a publicly traded company is set to launch a new wireless MVNO service, Linkup Mobile, according to the latest prepaid report from Wave7 Research sent to subscribers. The company is set to have a booth in this year's All Wireless & Prepaid Expo in Las Vegas, scheduled for August 27-28, 2024.
An SEC filing and press release from SurgePays in March highlighted the company's 4Q23 earnings and their plans to launch Linkup Mobile. The release noted that SurgePays acquired Clearline Mobile, a digital engagement and marketing platform in 2023. The company plans to integrate Clearline Mobile with its SurgePays software into touchscreen tablets located next to cash registers in convenience stores. SurgePays believes this platform will give them a competitive edge in the marketplace in terms of their ability to offer a suite of products and services, in-store marketing, and a support team. The company plans to launch Linkup Mobile during the current quarter, 2Q24.
The SurgePays website notes that it is already the home of over 250k MVNO wireless subscribers using the AT&T and T-Mobile networks. SurgePays had focused on offering mobile broadband services to low-income consumers. Their 4Q23 filing notes that they ended 2023 with $137.1 million in total revenue, up 113% from the previous year. They attributed the gains primarily due to their participation in the ACP program. "The increase was primarily due to Mobile Virtual Network Operations ("MVNO"), consisting of SurgePhone and Torch Wireless revenues related to providing subsidized mobile broadband and wireless service to consumers eligible for the ACP. The increase in MVNO revenue was $30.2 million in 2023, largely due to a subscriber count of over 260,000 wireless ACP subscribers at year-end 2023 compared to 200,000 at year-end 2022," the filing states.
Linkup Mobile Phone Plans
The Linkup Mobile phone plans appear to still be a work in progress. The plans shown on the Linkup Mobile website appear to be incomplete, without any pricing. However, an X user tagged BestMVNO in a post showing a screenshot of what pricing may be.
It looks like four plans will be launched. And the plans may come with a first-month free offer. All plans appear to include unlimited talk and text plus calling to Canada and Mexico. Data allotments begin at 3GB and go up to "unlimited," although they do not define what they mean by unlimited. The four plans as they stand now are as follows:
$20/month - 3GB
$30/month - 10GB
$40/month - 20GB
$50/month - unlimited
Linkup Mobile's plans don't appear to be the most competitively priced in the market as you can see when you compare phone plans using BestMVNO's phone plan finder. However, they already have an existing ACP subscriber base to market to that can help them gain traction. Pushing their platforms further into convenience stores may also help them to achieve growth in a highly competitive prepaid wireless segment.
Jeff Moore, Principal of Wave7 Research commented to BestMVNO: "LinkUp Mobile is an MVNO that is slated to launch soon, as Wave7 Research has reported. Details are unclear, but the company has scheduled a call to provide more details. LinkUp Mobile is part of SurgePays, a publicly-traded company that is slated to have a booth at the All Wireless & Prepaid Expo in Las Vegas in August."
