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Mint Mobile owner Ryan Reynolds on lowering cell phone plan prices: ‘Pragmatic is really sexy’

Mint Mobile owner and actor Ryan Reynolds sits down with Yahoo Finance Live's Allie Garfinkle to detail the importance of affordable pricing and pragmatic business models for unlimited phone plans.

Video transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: The bite from inflation, it started at the gas pump and grocery store, and now is coming for your phone bill. The two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, are raising prices. But one company is doing the opposite-- Mint Mobile. Senior tech reporter Allie Garfinkle sat down with actor and Mint Mobile owner Ryan Reynolds and first asked him about the competition raising prices.

RYAN REYNOLDS: AT&T, they're raising their prices due to inflation. And-- AT&T and Verizon are. And it's, we just wanted to do the opposite of that. Mint's dropping prices on all plans, including its unlimited plan, down to $15 a month for the first three months. And look, this is the exact reason that I became an owner of this company, is that it's just a-- it's a company that just thinks different, pivots when it needs to.

And I just-- I've never quite understood. Look, wireless is an essential service. Why would you pay $100 a month for something where you could get the exact same thing for $15 a month? And that's quite literally the business model of Mint. There's no brick and mortar. It's a company that has largely pioneered the D2C online wireless category. And we built a business that really truly scales so much more efficiently than your traditional brick and mortars.

And that's the special sauce that instead of keeping those efficiencies, we're passing them on right back to the customer in the form of crazy low prices. And I think right now, in the world we're living in, economically speaking, it's kind of the perfect time for people to discover what Mint has to offer.

ALLIE GARFINKLE: Yeah, I'd love to spin that out a little bit. We've been talking about inflation now for the last two years ish. So what made right now the right time to run this promotion?

RYAN REYNOLDS: Well, you know, like, it's-- more than anything, it's right in the zeitgeist, I think. This is something that has become a cultural conversation, inflation. You know, it might not be the sexiest cultural conversation, but it's on the tips of so many people's tongues, and rightly so. Big wireless, they're posting these multibillion dollar profits even just this last quarter. And then they're raising prices due to inflation. That's-- to me, that is a humongous opportunity that I'm going to jump on. And my colleagues at Mint, my partners at Mint felt the same way. So this is exactly what Mint was built for, moments like this.

ALLIE GARFINKLE: And how long had you sort of been talking about this particular campaign, out of curiosity?

RYAN REYNOLDS: This has been something that we've been formulating for months now, as inflation has slowly sort of eked up. But at the same time, it's-- our baseline is already incredible. I mean, we offer unlimited plans for $30 a month. So we have no plans to raise prices at all. And on two separate occasions, Mint, actually, we increased data bucket sizes for all subscribers at no cost to existing subscribers, so.

And we'll also-- one of the other things that I think is so interesting about Mint is, its innovation isn't necessarily in the product because we're offering the same service that big wireless is offering. It's the price. The innovation is in the price. I mean, you see so many people that are in my position, at least, that are working for-- working with or working for different companies and that sort of thing at these aspirational kinds of products. I think pragmatic is really sexy. I think practical is really sexy.

And that's why I saw this enormous opportunity with Mint. It's why this-- I think part of the reason this company has doubled year over year since it was founded five years ago. I mean, the growth-- the revenue growth has been 90,000% over the last several years, which just sounds like an insane number. But as you could tell, I'm super excited about Mint. I think it really is the way it should be. It's like-- it's just, there's a reason it's growing this much.

SEANA SMITH: That was actor, Mint Mobile owner, Ryan Reynolds speaking with our own Allie Garfinkle. And Dave, he brings up a lot of good points. First of all, people are feeling the pain of inflation. We've talked to numerous guests about how it's impacting everyday consumers. People are looking to save. It's a good time for Mint to run this promotion and hopefully attract some of those new users.

DAVE BRIGGS: I'm stuck on pragmatic is sexy.--

SEANA SMITH: --is sexy. I know. That was--

DAVE BRIGGS: I mean, that was a gem of a line from Ryan Reynolds, who also used zeitgeist. I mean, he's an extraordinarily intelligent guy. He needs to have a flaw. Like, he's funny. He's talented. He's--

SEANA SMITH: Very nice, yeah.

DAVE BRIGGS: --smart. He's got the gin. He's got a new effort to increase diversity in marketing called Creative Ladder with Deloitte. The guy--

SEANA SMITH: He does it all.

DAVE BRIGGS: --does it all.

SEANA SMITH: I know. It's hard to compete with.