Trump Mobile is here. Experts are baffled

You can stay at Trump hotels, play golf at Trump courses, and could, for a short time in 2007, buy Trump steaks. But MAGA-maniacs now have a new tchotchke they can buy to support the 47th U.S. president: a $499 cell phone sold by the Trump Organization, the family business run by the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. The device will run on a specialist Trump Mobile network.

“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,” Trump Jr. said at a press conference held at Trump Tower in New York on Monday. The phone will launch in September, with subscriptions to the mobile network priced at $47.45 per month—a pointed reference to the president’s two terms in office.

The announcement has left mobile experts puzzled. “This latest move raises more questions than answers,” says Paolo Pescatore, technology, media and telecoms analyst at PP Foresight. He notes that many details remain unclear, particularly how Trump Mobile will serve its customers given indications it will rely on Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile networks—the three major mobile operators in the U.S. “As always, the devil is in the detail given that it is unclear around the actual commercial relationship with the telecom players and so forth,” Pescatore says, “therefore, it is a bit unclear what the impact will be on the market.”

Horace Dediu, an independent smartphone industry analyst, is similarly unconvinced. “It’s a bit of a throwback to a thing that was popular 10 or 15 years ago,” he says. “It’s kind of a marketing idea above all.” Trump Mobile would be an MVNO—a mobile virtual network operator—which, at present, doesn’t own any of its own infrastructure. That may be intentional, considering the risks involved. “The puzzle to me is why are they resurrecting this idea from, like, 10 years ago and trying to milk a little bit of extra money out of this,” Dediu says.

MVNOs have minimal presence in the U.S. smartphone market, holding less than a 5% share. The major providers—Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile—dominate, and they will supply the actual infrastructure for Trump phones.

Even the device itself may face an uphill battle. Apple maintains a commanding market share in the U.S., and the Android model Trump Mobile plans to offer is likely to appeal more to middle- and low-income consumers. While that may align with Trump’s political base, it doesn’t necessarily reflect his typical brand audience. “It’s a bit of a puzzler,” says Dediu. “Then again, there might be a population of Trump fans who are willing to spend on anything Trump.”

Success is far from certain. “I’m struggling to figure out why even the phone would make sense,” Dediu says. While some profit could be made on hardware sales, he notes that branding might allow a $200 device to be sold for $500, though the costs of servicing customers could quickly erode that margin.

PP Foresight’s Pescatore notes that while Trump Mobile may run on the big three network providers, who control 95% of the market, those companies might not welcome the arrangement. “We should expect to see backlash from a slew of stakeholders, as among other things they will perceive this as being a conflict of interest,” he says. (Such conflicts aren’t new in Trump’s world; the president recently promoted Teslas on the White House lawn.)