For much of the last three decades, the terms “wireless carrier” and “cellphone provider” have largely been synonymous.  Your wireless carrier was the company that provided the service for your cellphone, and in the vast majority of cases also sold you that cellphone, often at a heavily subsidized rate. However, the reality is that the wireless carriers in the US are becoming much more than just cellphone providers, and in fact cellphones are becoming a smaller percentage of devices on the major US mobile networks over time.

Phones are growing, but not as fast as in the past

The total number of phones on the four major US mobile networks (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless) continues to grow, but the rate of growth has slowed. Whereas in the past phone subscribers grew by double digits every year, now they grow by single digits at best, and the reason is obvious: the vast majority of people who will ever own a phone already have one.

The small amount of growth there is in phones comes in large part from the generational effect of new users emerging at the younger end of the population scale, combined with a few laggards and late adopters among the older generations. Continue reading →