Flowers aren’t the only thing growing this spring. Data for Verizon’s prepaid customers is, too.
Verizon on Thursday announced it is giving its prepaid plans a facelift by adding an extra gigabyte of data for Auto Pay customers and opening up international calling options.
Starting May 15, Verizon said customers on its $45 and $60 prepaid plans who sign up for Auto Pay will get an extra gigabyte of data for a total of 3GB and 6GB of data, respectively. Additional data can be purchased for $10 per GB.
The extra gigabyte of data for Auto Pay customers was first rolled out in February as a promotional offer, but Verizon said the pricing structure will now be permanent.
Additionally, Verizon said its $60 prepaid plan will now include unlimited talk to Mexico and Canada. Customers on the $45 plan will be able to add 1,000 minutes of talk time to Mexico and Canada for $10 per month.
Both plans include unlimited talk and text in the United States and unlimited texting to Mexico and Canada.
The move follows a rough first quarter for Verizon’s prepaid business in which it lost 177,000 prepaid devices.
During the carrier’s earnings call, CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon knows its prepaid offerings are “above market” and said the carrier is “really not competitive in that environment.” Shammo attributed Verizon’s lack of attention to prepaid to its focus on making sure it doesn’t migrate its postpaid base to prepaid.
Rather than using its own prepaid brand as a competitive force, Shammo said Verizon has put its effort into the TracFone brand as a way to target the prepaid market.