The Verizon Prepaid Moto E5 Go is now available for free exclusively at Walmart. The offer is available in-store only and was jointly discovered by analysts at Wave7 Research and Mil Hustles who is also known as @kingoftechdeals. The Moto E5 Go is regularly priced at $34.88. Online Walmart lists the suggested retail price at $79.
In order to get the phone for free customers will need to purchase a Verizon Prepaid refill card priced $50 or higher and activate in-store. The offer is for new lines of service only. No end date for the deal has been specified.
Walmart does have a few other Verizon Prepaid phones marked down from their suggested retail price, but nothing is as significant as the free phone offer. Other phones currently marked down from the suggested retail price (SRP) at Walmart include the following:
- TCL Alcatel Avalon - $42.88 with SRP of $79
- Motorola Moto E6 - $89 with SRP of $119
- Freetel eTalk Flip Phone - $19.88 with SRP of $24.88
- Nokia 3V - $88.88 with SRP of $109
See More Verizon Prepaid Walmart Phones
Free Phones In National Retail Are Extremely Rare, Verizon Is Investing More In Prepaid
The fact that a phone is being offered for free in a big box store is quite significant. The last time a free in-store phone offer was observed was also at Walmart and in March of 2019. At that time the Straight Talk LG Premier PRO was made free with port-in and after 3-months of auto-refill paid service. The offer was supported by online advertising. At the moment, Verizon Prepaid has elected to keep the offer low key with no advertising outside of in-store displays that feature it. Still, the offer is highly notable as Verizon Prepaid looks to revive its prepaid division. After Verizon's Q1 2020 earnings report it was pointed out by an industry analyst that Verizon's Prepaid division had lost subscribers for 10 straight quarters.
The free phone offer is just one of many new prepaid changes made by Verizon since March. In mid-March, Verizon launched the prepaid brand Yahoo Mobile as a repackaging of Verizon's other prepaid brand Visible. Yahoo Mobile was launched as a way for Verizon to try to further monetize its large Yahoo web userbase. Verizon owns the Yahoo brand.
Going back to at least May, BestMVNO observed that Yahoo began sending out emails to its Yahoo Mail users notifying them about Yahoo Mobile. An ad for the service also now displays on the Yahoo website and reads "Yahoo! Mobile. Unlimited data, text, and talk. Just $39.99/month."
In addition to the new prepaid brand, for the first time, Verizon has begun to advertise its other prepaid brand, Visible. A commercial has been airing on TV and through streaming media platforms highlighting the brand which was first launched in May of 2018. The commercial tells viewers that Visible uses Verizon's network and that they can get their first month of service for $25. Visible is regularly priced at $40/month for an unlimited talk, text, and LTE data plan that also includes unlimited hotspot. Taxes and fees are included in the price.
Last week, Verizon also refreshed its Verizon Prepaid branded plans with more data and a new customer loyalty discount program. Customers are rewarded with a lower price for their prepaid plan the longer they stay subscribed to the service. Maximum discounts of $10/month off plans are available starting with a subscriber's 10th consecutive month of service. Discounts of $5/month off begin with the subscriber's 4th month of service. Verizon Prepaid's data containing phone plans start at $40/month before a $5 autopay discount is applied. The plan includes unlimited everything with the first 5GB of data available at high-speeds before throttling to 2G data speeds.
Verizon has made a lot of changes to its prepaid division. But will they be enough to reverse the consecutive quarters of subscriber losses? We should begin to have an idea on July 24, 2020, when Verizon releases its earnings report for quarter two.