Once again, Simple Mobile has stolen the top spot in Wave7 Research’s quarterly independent multi-carrier dealer survey. To date, Simple has commanded the lead every quarter in all of the 31 quarterly surveys conducted by the research firm.
According to one California dealer in the survey, Simple comprised more than 80% of his store’s total activations. Simple was also voted the #1 prepaid brand among the 30 dealers that were surveyed. Other top ranked brands include Boost Mobile, where 4 of 10 dealers reported Boost as the top brand. However, T-Mobile Prepaid shined with 3 of 5 dealers voting the brand as their top seller. Other MVNOs and prepaid brands with a strong dealer presence include H2O Wireless, Net10, Ultra Mobile, and AT&T Prepaid.
And The Runners-up Are:
Following Simple with a second place ranking is AT&T Prepaid, which held the spot for the first time in the 2Q22 survey and continues in the 3Q22 survey. While none of the 17 dealers offering AT&T Prepaid flagged them as their top brand, about half cited AT&T Prepaid as their second best seller. Six of 13 dealers voted Ultra Mobile as their second best seller. You can check out the full set of survey results in the table below.
| Prepaid Carrier | Presence among 30 dealers | 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Also-ran |
| Simple Mobile | 25 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| AT&T Prepaid | 17 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 6 |
| Net10 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| Ultra Mobile | 13 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| H2O Wireless | 12 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Verizon Prepaid | 12 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 3 |
| Boost | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Gen Mobile | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| Lycamobile | 6 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| GoSmart Mobile | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| T-Mobile prepaid | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| PagePlus | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Cricket | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Metro | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total Wireless | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| TracFone | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| UScellular | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
We All Love An Underdog
Wave7 Research awarded Gen Mobile the Momentum award. Gen is climbing in the ranks of prepaid brands with 9 dealers now reporting activations and finished as a top three performer at three dealers. In previous reports, Gen had barely been noticed by dealers, present in only 4 stores in 2Q22.
AT&T Prepaid is relatively new to the multi-carrier channel, with a presence in stores only since 2019 and jumped from fourth place in 1Q22 to second and holding since 2Q22 so AT&T gets the nod as an honorable mention for momentum.
These Guys Could Use Some Coaching
PagePlus quietly slipped away from dealers in 3Q22 losing 4 places with only 5 dealers offering PagePlus, this is down from 9 in 2Q22, with only one mention as the top seller. Total Wireless has gone quietly into the night on the edge of the Total by Verizon launch with only one mention in the survey. Wave7 Research and BestMVNO will be watching for a strong presence in upcoming reports following the full launch of Total by Verizon.
Verizon Domination
Since November 2021, Verizon-owned brands have dominated the multi-carrier channel. In this report, 7 of the 17 brands mentioned are Verizon-owned brands. Of the 30 stores participating in the survey, a Verizon-owned brand ranked first as a top seller. Verizon Prepaid was found present in 12 of the 30 stores.
And the other guys?
Other prepaid brands found in the multi-carrier channel that showed no real growth included Cricket Wireless found in six of the 30 dealers, with only three reporting Cricket as a third-place seller. Tracfone, US Cellular, and Metro by T-Mobile were each found in only one store with no top sales rankings except for Metro. One New Jersey dealer reported Metro as his top seller, perhaps because there are no free standing Metro stores nearby.
"Simple Mobile was the winner of this survey again, as usual. The big surprise is the strong momentum that Gen Mobile had in the survey, as the carrier is aggressively targeting dealers. It will be interesting in future surveys to monitor the rise of Total by Verizon." -- Jeff Moore, Principal of Wave7 Research