U.S. Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) Market

Life360 ended 2025 with 2.0 million paying U.S. Circles, up 23%, and earned USD 308.8 million of U.S. subscription revenue, about USD 154 per paying family a year, according to its results of 2 March 2026; Americans now pay for knowing where their phones, and their children, are. The U.S. mobile value added services (MVAS) market covers the paid services that U.S. mobile subscribers add on top of voice and data access: device protection and tech support, content and streaming perks bought through the carrier bill, security and identity protection, location and family safety services, and messaging, voicemail and international add-ons. Douglas Insights sizes it at USD 24.0 billion in 2025, from 597 million wireless connections at USD 40.20 of value added services spend each, and at USD 43.3 billion in 2035, a revenue CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 6.09%. The study sits in our information technology and semiconductors coverage and every figure follows the Douglas Insights research methodology.

Which companies lead U.S. mobile value added services, and how concentrated are they?

Asurion leads U.S. mobile value added services with about 27.0% of 2025 value, USD 6.48 billion, Douglas Insights estimates, on carrier device protection programmes. With Assurant and Verizon, the top three hold 44.5%.

Assurant reported Global Lifestyle revenue of USD 9.58 billion for 2025, up 7%, with growth credited to global mobile programmes, in its results of 10 February 2026, so our U.S. mobile estimate is 23.8% of that segment. Life360’s figure is filed; Asurion is private and the carrier shares are Douglas Insights estimates of the add-on revenue they keep.

Device protection makes U.S. mobile value added services concentrated at the top: each national carrier runs one protection programme with one administrator, so a single contract can carry tens of millions of handsets. Below the top five the market is fragmented across apps, caller-ID providers and billing platforms.

Which U.S. mobile value added services segment earns most: protection, content, security, location or messaging?

Device protection and tech support earns most, 43.0% of 2025 U.S. mobile value added services value, USD 10.3 billion, because flagship phones cost over USD 1,000. Location and family safety grows fastest, 9.40% a year to USD 5.60 billion.

Device protection, USD 10.3 billion, leads because a cracked screen on a USD 1,999 foldable costs more to fix than a year of cover, a price point described in our U.S. Foldable Smartphone Market report. It grows 5.20% a year, below the market, as carriers fold basic cover into premium plans. Content, streaming perks and carrier billing, USD 5.64 billion, grow 6.20% a year as carriers resell streaming at a discount and keep a margin.

Security, caller ID and identity protection, USD 3.48 billion, grow 8.60% a year as scam calls and texts push subscribers to paid tiers. Location, family safety and parental controls, USD 2.28 billion, grow fastest because parents of each new child phone buy them. Messaging, voicemail and international add-ons, USD 2.28 billion, grow only 2.40% a year because free over-the-top apps replace paid texts and calling packs; business texting is sized separately in our A2P SMS and CPaaS Market report.

How do carriers, cable MVNOs and app stores split U.S. mobile value added services billing?

The three national carriers bill 61.0% of 2025 U.S. mobile value added services value, USD 14.6 billion, Douglas Insights estimates. Cable and other MVNOs bill 11.0%, and app stores and direct web sales 28.0%.

By billing channel, cable and other mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) bill USD 2.64 billion and app stores and direct sales USD 6.72 billion. Carrier billing wins because a subscriber adds a service with one tap and pays it with the phone bill, so attach rates on carrier channels run far above direct downloads. Apps such as Life360 still sell mostly through app stores, which is why that channel grows fastest.

By customer, consumer lines take 86.0%, USD 20.6 billion, and business and government lines 14.0%, USD 3.36 billion, mostly device protection on corporate-liable phones and fleet location services.

Why is U.S. mobile value added services demand growing 2.60% a year in connections?

U.S. mobile value added services connections grow 2.60% a year, from 597 million in 2025 to about 772 million in 2035. Four forces add 2.90 points; wearables and connected devices supply 1.30.

The base is set by the CTIA 2025 Annual Survey, which counted 579 million U.S. wireless connections in 2024, about 1.7 per person, with 132 trillion megabytes of data and 5G devices near half of connections, as Benton reported on 10 September 2025.

Wearables, tablets and connected devices: 1.30 points

Connected devices add 1.30 points. Each smartwatch or tablet line can carry its own protection plan and family-safety feature.

Family and child lines: 0.70 points

Child lines add 0.70 points. Families add a first phone or a watch for younger children, and that line is the one most likely to carry location and parental-control services.

Business and government lines: 0.50 points

Business lines add 0.50 points as employers issue phones to field staff and buy protection and fleet location with them.

Prepaid users moving to bundled plans: 0.40 points

Plan migration adds 0.40 points. The four forces, 1.30 + 0.70 + 0.50 + 0.40, give 2.90 points before restraints.

What holds back U.S. mobile value added services as free apps and bundling bite?

Two restraints remove 0.30 points from U.S. mobile value added services connection growth, leaving 2.60% a year. Saturation of adult phone ownership takes 0.20 points and switching to lighter MVNO plans 0.10 points.

Saturation is the volume brake: almost every U.S. adult already has a phone, so new connections come from devices and children rather than new subscribers. Douglas Insights books 0.20 points of lost growth for it. Lighter plans remove 0.10 points as subscribers move to cable MVNOs that sell fewer add-ons per line.

Substitution caps the price leg. Free messaging and calling apps hold the messaging and international segment to 2.40% a year, and carriers increasingly give perks and basic scam blocking away inside premium plans, which shifts value from add-on revenue into the plan price this report excludes. Messaging rules add cost too: Twilio excluded about USD 49.5 million of pass-through U.S. carrier messaging fees from 2025 organic revenue in its results filed on 12 February 2026.

Why does the South lead U.S. mobile value added services spending by region while the West keeps pace?

The South spends most, USD 9.24 billion or 38.5% of 2025 U.S. mobile value added services value, because it holds the most people and lines. It also grows fastest, 6.40% a year to USD 17.2 billion by 2035, Douglas Insights estimates.

The South leads because Texas and Florida add the most new residents and family lines, and families attach location and protection services to each child’s phone. The West, USD 5.64 billion, grows 6.30% a year with high smartwatch and premium-phone ownership in California and Washington, which lifts protection spending per line.

The Midwest, USD 4.80 billion, and the Northeast, USD 4.32 billion, both grow 5.60% a year, held back by slower population growth. In the data table the row labelled Global holds the U.S. total, USD 24.0 billion in 2025.

What does a U.S. mobile value added services add-on cost per connection?

A U.S. wireless connection carried USD 40.20 of mobile value added services spend in 2025, Douglas Insights estimates, from a few dollars a year on an IoT line to over USD 300 on a protected flagship phone. Spend per connection rises 3.40% a year.

Verizon raised its Apple One perk from USD 10 to USD 15 a month from 17 April 2025, PhoneArena reported, a sign that perk prices follow the streaming services’ own rises. The Life360 price comes from USD 308.8 million of U.S. subscription revenue over 2.0 million paying Circles.

Spend per connection rises 3.40% a year because more expensive phones raise protection premiums and because security and family tiers attach to more lines. Douglas Insights projects USD 41.57 per connection in 2026 and USD 56.16 by 2035.

How do FCC consent rules, text blocking and COPPA shape U.S. mobile value added services?

Three federal rules shape U.S. mobile value added services: the FCC’s TCPA consent-revocation rule from 11 April 2025, FCC text blocking from 24 July 2024, and the FTC’s amended COPPA rule, effective 23 June 2025.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires opt-out requests to be honoured within 10 business days and recognised in words such as STOP, QUIT and END from 11 April 2025, while order DA 25-312 of 7 April 2025 delayed to 11 April 2026 the part that applies one revocation to all of a caller’s messages, Hunton reported. The FCC’s text-blocking order, FCC 23-107, published in the Federal Register, made mobile carriers block texts from numbers the FCC flags as sending illegal messages, which raised the value of paid caller-ID and spam tiers.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule in the Federal Register on 22 April 2025, with compliance due by 22 April 2026, tightening parental consent for apps that collect children’s data. Douglas Insights treats these rules as a cost on messaging and a support for paid security and family-safety services.

What if bundling wins: where does the U.S. mobile value added services forecast land in 2035?

The U.S. mobile value added services market ends 2035 between USD 34.6 billion and USD 53.1 billion across our three cases, around a base of USD 43.3 billion. Carrier bundling decisions set most of the spread.

In the slower case carriers fold protection and security into plan prices and the add-on line shrinks. In the faster case satellite messaging, kids’ watches and paid identity protection spread to most families. One extra point of yearly connection growth adds USD 4.41 billion to 2035 U.S. mobile value added services value.

Douglas Exclusive: the U.S. Mobile Trust-Spend Ledger

The U.S. Mobile Trust-Spend Ledger is a Douglas Insights model built from 8 sourced inputs, 3 company filings, 3 federal rules, 1 industry survey and 1 news report, setting each dated event against the security, family-safety and protection spending it moves.

The finding, a Douglas Insights estimate: security and family-safety services hold 24.0% of 2025 U.S. mobile value added services value but supply 39.2% of the USD 19.9 billion that segments add by 2035. Trust, not entertainment, becomes the second engine of the market after device protection.

How does the methodology turn 597 million connections into USD 24.0 billion of U.S. mobile value added services?

Our methodology multiplies 597 million U.S. wireless connections in 2025 by USD 40.20 of value added services spend per connection to reach USD 24.0 billion. Connections start from CTIA’s 2024 count; spend from five service segments.

The model covers 4 regions, 5 service segments, 3 billing channels and 2 customer types, and uses 58 data points, 8 sourced and 50 modelled. Arithmetic: 597 million x USD 40.20 = USD 24.0 billion; 24.0 x (1.0260 x 1.0340)^10 = 43.3, or USD 43.3 billion. Connections reach 613 million in 2026 and 772 million in 2035.

Two cross-checks agree. First, 597 million connections are 3.1% above CTIA’s 579 million for 2024, in line with recent annual growth. Second, our Assurant estimate, USD 2.28 billion, is 23.8% of its USD 9.58 billion Global Lifestyle revenue, consistent with U.S. mobile being one of several programmes in that segment, and Life360’s USD 308.8 million is 13.5% of our location and family-safety segment.

Sources

1. Life360 Life360 Reports Record Q4 2025 Results (2026)
2. Assurant / Business Wire Assurant Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results (2026)
3. Twilio / SEC Twilio fourth quarter and full year 2025 results (Form 8-K exhibit) (2026)
4. Benton Institute CTIA 2025 Annual Survey Highlights (2025)
5. Hunton Andrews Kurth Burdensome portion of TCPA rule delayed through April 2026 (2025)
6. Federal Register Targeting and Eliminating Unlawful Text Messages, FCC 23-107 (2024)
7. Federal Trade Commission, Federal Register Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (2025)
8. PhoneArena Verizon raises Apple One perk price (2025)

What counts in the U.S. mobile value added services market, and what is excluded?

The U.S. mobile value added services market counts paid add-on services sold to U.S. mobile subscribers beyond voice and data access. Plan fees, handset sales, enterprise A2P messaging and in-app game purchases stay out.

The by-service split covers device protection and tech support; content, streaming perks and carrier billing; security, caller ID and identity protection; location, family safety and parental controls; and messaging, voicemail and international add-ons. The by-channel split covers national carriers, cable and other MVNOs, and app stores and direct sales. The by-customer split covers consumer and business lines. The by-region split covers the South, West, Midwest and Northeast. Streaming perks count at the add-on price the subscriber pays, not the streaming service’s full list price, in this U.S. mobile value added services sizing.