By Hannah Lang, Michelle Conlin and Akash Sriram
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump’s family business licensed its name to launch a U.S. mobile service and a $499 smartphone on Monday, calling it Trump Mobile, in the latest deal brokered by the president’s children to capitalize on his last name while he is in office.
The new mobile venture, announced at Trump Tower in Manhattan, will operate using the networks of the three major U.S. wireless carriers. Some key details about the venture, including those about the family’s partner in the business and financial terms of their licensing deal, were not immediately disclosed.
“We are going to be introducing an entire package of products where people can come and they can get telemedicine on their phones for one flat monthly fee, roadside assistance on their cars, unlimited texting to 100 countries around the world,” said the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
The announcement also promoted the launch of a “sleek, gold smartphone” that will be “designed and built in the United States.”
It was not known which U.S.-based company could deliver a phone at $499, a feat that has eluded the world’s largest phone makers, including Apple. Despite the strength of U.S.-based tech brands, there is no significant domestic smartphone production infrastructure, largely due to high labor costs, supply chain complexity, and reliance on overseas component sourcing.
The president has said he put his business interests in a trust managed by his children to avoid conflicts of interest, but income from such business ventures will eventually enrich the president, who sits atop the series of Trump family firms.
In the president’s financial disclosure released on Friday, he reported more than $600 million in income from licensing deals, crypto projects, golf clubs and other ventures. Those numbers appeared to be through the end of 2024, before he was inaugurated for his second term as president. Since then, the Trump family’s crypto projects alone have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars.
“No one who has been paying attention could miss that President Trump considers the presidency a vehicle to grow his family’s wealth. Maybe this example will help more come to see this undeniable truth,” said Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard Law School.
MVNO OPERATOR
The mobile service will include call centers based in the United States and phones made in America, according to the announcement by the Trump Organization, the term the family uses to describe the president’s multiple business ventures. Wireless service provider AT&T currently operates call centers in the United States.
T1 Mobile uses the “Trump” name under a trademark license, similar to other Trump-branded ventures. According to the Trump Mobile website, the Trump Organization is not involved in designing the smartphone, manufacturing it, providing or selling the cellular service.
The U.S. mobile network market is dominated by three national carriers: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, which together control over 95% of the wireless market. But mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), which buy network capacity from the major U.S. carriers, are becoming increasingly popular for targeting niche markets.
Actor Ryan Reynolds was both an investor and spokesperson for Mint Mobile, a low-cost MVNO aimed at light phone users, which was later acquired by T-Mobile for $1.35 billion.
It can be difficult for such ventures to make money, an analyst said.
“MVNOs account for barely 3-4% of U.S. wireless subscriptions and customer churn tends to be high,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors. “Unless Trump Mobile cracks the million-subscriber mark — well above most celebrity MVNOs — the financial impact is de minimis.”
A website that went live after the announcement said the new Trump-branded smartphone will be available from September. The new network will be available for a subscription price of $47.45 per month, a reference to Trump, who was the 45th President in his previous term and is now serving as the 47th President.
“This latest move raises more questions than answers. As always the devil is in the details, given that it is unclear around the actual commercial relationship with the telecom players and so forth,” said Paolo Pescatore, TMT analyst at PP Foresight.
(Reporting by Hannah Lang and Michelle Conlin in New York and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Writing by Elizabeth Howcroft; additional reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Nick Zieminski)
