US Mobile, the self-proclaimed "Super Carrier," has launched its first-ever retail store. The announcement was made through a new YouTube video released over the weekend.
The new US Mobile store is located in Monsey, NY, a suburb of New York City in Rockland County, and serves an Orthodox Jewish community. This move follows US Mobile’s experiment earlier this year with a pop-up shop in Spring Valley Marketplace, also in Rockland County. The pop-up shop, which opened in March 2024, was targeted toward the local Jewish community and featured signage promoting the now-discontinued "Kosher Plan," which offered unlimited talk and text for $6/month. The new store features signage for an $8/month Kosher plan.
US Mobile 2024 Highlights
US Mobile has had an active year, launching new products, and now a store, as well as testing various marketing strategies. Highlights for the year include the following:
- Billboard advertising: Put up a billboard in the NYC area advertising unlimited talk and text for $8/month
- Print Advertising: Started traditional print advertising in the magazine Weekly Link, a publication that serves Jewish communities across the NY, NJ, and CT, Tri-Sate Area
- Creative Video Campaign: Debuted a marketing campaign with several videos featuring a parody of Wolverine, as well as a fictious mobile brand "Claw Mobile." To date, efforts around this campaign seem soft, with very little views of the videos in their YouTube channel while a Facebook video launched in September sits at just 26k views. However, all eyes are on the holiday shopping season to see if this campaign ramps up.
- New Network Features: Introduced service on the AT&T network as 'Dark Star,' and launched Apple Watch plans and support. Gave customers the ability to switch networks on demand through a feature they call Teleport.
- Retail Expansion: Opened a pop-up shop and a branded brick and mortar retail store
To date, US Mobile has raised over $20 million in venture capital funding helping to fuel its growth. CEO Ahmed Khattak and COO/CFO Michael Melmed have previously stated that they had a goal of reaching one million subscribers by the end of 2024. In May 2024, US Mobile's subscriber count was revealed to be 500,000, making the target of doubling the subscriber base in less than a year quite an ambitious challenge. US Mobile is only sold online, and through one brick and mortar store. They are not sold in national retail or through wireless dealers.
Bad news! I use USM and like what it offers. But we all know how business works these days. First you do the right thing. Then you attract investors. Then you shift from serving your customers to serving your investors. The customers become the primary product you sell to investors. Along with a growth plan that involves making more $ off of less service.
Usually this goes hand in hand with great reductions in customer service. Expect bots and not much else to be implemented.
Then when your investors are thrilled, you sell the customer base and business model and take the money. The new buyers milk the base you developed for all it’s worth until it hits some average level. The company and it’s services settle around the same as competition if not worse.
Or they suck the money out and kill the company. Happens a lot as well.
Witness TMO.
This process is a variation on what is now called “enshitification” of a business.
Think that US Mobile’s going to have to settle on at least a core identity – and put a clamp on its constant transmutations – before it’ll ever tempt a serious buyer.
And in that regard, a little more attention to its core plan features – like the much-hyped international calling feature of its current unlimited plans -might be a good idea. Was in Costa Rica recently looking forward to taking advantage of this feature, only to discover that its Costa Rican partner had gone belly up months (maybe years) ago. Ended up reliving 2008 and purchasing a sim at a local tobacco shop, muttering US Mobile non-niceties as I cracked open my phone.
Of course and to my earlier point, I guess it’s possible that USM did another about-face and changed the innards of my current plan sometime between my plane change in Miami and my arrival in San Jose.