Mint Mobile has been a popular MVNO for years, especially for people willing to sign up for multiple months of service at once to get a discount. The mobile carrier is now being acquired by T-Mobile.

T-Mobile announced its purchase of Ka'ena Corporation, which in turn owns Mint MobileUltra Mobile (another MVNO that specializes in international calling), and Plum (a wholesale MVNO). T-Mobile isn't disclosing how many subscribers each carrier has, but the number is almost certainly high -- Mint has consistently been one of the most-recommended options for budget phone plans, including in our own best cell phone plan roundup. Mint has also gained some notoriety since 2019 for being partially owned by actor Ryan Reynolds, who has helped market the carrier in many advertisements.

T-Mobile says it "help the brands to grow and offer competitive pricing and greater device inventory to more U.S. consumers seeking value offerings." Mint Mobile founders David Glickman and Rizwan Kassim will continue to manage the brands at T-Mobile, while Ryan Reynolds will work for Mint in a "creative role." T-Mobile is paying up to $1.35 billion, depending on how much money Ka'ena is making by the time the deal closes later this year.

It's not clear what changes are in store for Mint after the acquisition is complete. One of Mint's founders said on Reddit that there are no plans to change Mint's plan prices, but plans can change, or Mint's service could become worse in some other way. T-Mobile has raised its prices less frequently in recent history than AT&T and Verizon, but it has used hidden fees to generate more revenue. T-Mobile promised not to raise prices on plans for three years if its purchase of Sprint went through, which was completed in April 2020... almost three years ago.

The purchase comes as T-Mobile is still dealing with repeated security breaches, which have led to the personal information of millions of customers being stolen. Mint already had a significant data breach in 2021, and future T-Mobile security breaches could affect Mint subscribers. In a perfect world, T-Mobile would take that $1.35 billion and invest it in security upgrades to protect its customers, instead of acquiring even more customers that it won't protect from hackers.

Source: T-Mobile