Payphones Still Make Millions

Wednesday, 15 November 2017 06:19
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

While most people seem to have a cell phone these days, and payphones feel like a thing of the past, the fact is that they still make a bunch of money.  In 2016 Canadian payphones netted an income of $22 million.  In the USA, the figure is about 10 times that - thanks to 10x the population.  It's surprising that the quarter-eating machines still do that kind of business, but there are times when you have no other choice - and there is a small percentage of the population that use them regularly...and it's still cheaper than a monthly phone plan. 

It might not be much in the grand scheme of the multi-billion dollar telecommunications industry, but it goes to show that some old and decrepit (and, crucially, shared) technologies still play a key role in many people’s lives.  Payphones are out here making money while some of the newest, hottest, and most “successful” tech companies around are still figuring out how to get their revenues to climb ahead of their yearly losses.