Mint Mobile may be looking for new owners, but it’s expensive

What you need to know

• Light Reading reports that Mint Mobile’s parent company, Ultra Mobile, has been shopping the carrier around to potential buyers.
• According to people involved in the discussion, the asking price has been too steep for those potential buyers.
• Actor Ryan Reynolds is a partial owner of Mint Mobile and has appeared in multiple ads for the carrier.

As reported by Light Reading (opens in new tab), Mint Mobile's parent company, Ultra Mobile, has been shopping Mint Mobile around to potential buyers. Citing people familiar with the situation, Ultra Mobile may be looking to sell the prepaid carrier. According to people involved in the discussion, the asking price is too high for Mint Mobile.

While the discussions are said to be relatively informal, the company's other brands, Ultra Mobile, and Plum Mobile may also be up for sale. Mint Mobile has been rapidly gaining momentum in the prepaid wireless space with competitive pricing and clever marketing led by partial owner Ryan Reynolds. 

Reynolds has appeared in a number of ads for Mint Mobile with his marketing company Maximum Effort creating a number of ads. Reynolds' latest spot advertising a deflation initiative that reduces rates to $15 per month for the first three months with the carrier.

Mint Mobile has some of the best cell phone plans around and uses the T-Mobile network, including 5G which gives customers access to the fastest and largest 5G network in the country thanks to its early access to fast, mid-band spectrum. Ultra Mobile also uses the T-Mobile network and has a similar structure to mind with multi-month savings and a lot of plans to choose from. 

Another key benefit of the T-Mobile network is compatibility with a large number of cell phones so for many people, they only need to put a Mint Mobile SIM in their existing phone to get activated.

Android Central has reached out to Mint Mobile for comment.