Yahoo Mobile, a mobile phone service that uses Verizon's network, is shutting down, the service announced on its official website. The service only launched in March of last year, meaning it barely lasted over a year before its shutdown. For the (likely few) customers continuing to use the service, the Yahoo Mobile website tells them to switch to Visible, another Verizon-operated service.

Back in 2016, Verizon acquired the Yahoo brand for $4.83 billion. In March of 2020, Verizon launched Yahoo Mobile with only one plan on offer: unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data for $40 per month. As The Verge pointed out, Yahoo Mobile was basically a rebranded version of Visible, another of Verizon's spinoff phone services. During its operation, the service only saw the launches of a couple of devices, including the budget Blade A3 Prime and Blade A3Y by ZTE. Its shutdown is not surprising to see as it offered next to nothing that Visible didn't already offer.

Last month, Verizon sold all the brands under Verizon Media, which included Yahoo, to an investment management firm called Apollo Global Management. On a support page, Yahoo Mobile cites this sale as the reason behind its shutdown, but we can't imagine the service would have lasted much longer anyway given its poor branding, marketing, and value.

Current Yahoo Mobile members will still have service for this billing cycle and can renew their service for one more month, but the service will be shut off completely by August 31st. Members can request for their numbers to be transferred to another carrier by logging into YahooMobile.com or the Yahoo Mobile app, and members are free to bring their existing devices to another carrier. For more details on what this shutdown means for customers, see this page set up by Yahoo Mobile or this one set up by Visible.