Prepaid wireless plans gaining in poor economy

June 10, 2009

Internet research company comScore said the U.S. prepaid wireless industry showed strong gains in online activity, based on online visitation and search referral activity to six leading prepaid wireless sites.

The combined visitation to the six leading sites grew 37 percent versus year ago to nearly 8 million visitors, representing more than 4 percent of the total U.S. internet audience.

Growth in the category was driven primarily by MyCricket.com (up 107 percent) and BoostMobile.com (up 105 percent), both of which more than doubled in visitation versus year ago, comScore said.

Demographically, prepaid wireless site visitation data suggest considerable interest in the plans among 35-64 year olds, although most of the marketing campaigns of pre-paid companies focus on younger people.

The majority of visitors to Net10.com (60.3 percent) and TracFone.com (58.7 percent) were from the 35-64 age segment. Even for sites where the majority of visitors were under 35 years of age, such as BoostMobile.com and MetroPCS.com, 35-64 year olds still comprised at least 40 percent of visitors to the site.

The analysis also examined search referral activity, which showed that organic searches outpaced paid search referrals on the whole.

"This dynamic suggests that the underlying consumer demand for prepaid wireless services is not just being driven by paid search marketing expenditures," comScore said.

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