Pre or Post – the Battle Continues

Virgin Mobile is prepaid, Helio is postpaid, and Amp’d has both options…which is better for the MVNO market? That depends on the target audience, of course, and Amp’d possibly has the best attitude, viewing “prepaid and postpaid as payment methods. These aren’t separate products.” Well, Virgin is aimed specifically at budget users, hence the prepaid option, while Helio is aimed directly at high-end users, which normally prefer postpaid. Amp’d is targeted at the youth market, and its prepaid service seems to be predicated on the idea that young people want high-end content services but may not want to (or be able to because of an insufficient credit history) get a postpaid account. It seems reasonable, but not all people are convinced…
“Can prepaid customers be lured to Amp’d or other high-end young-adult oriented wireless services because of their multimedia capabilities? Some analysts are dubious. Iain Gillott, founder of research firm iGR, says there are plenty of potential customers in the young adult demographic group who can and will sign up for postpaid plans. “If you can’t attract someone to a postpaid plan with the EV-DO network and all that cool content stuff, you certainly won’t do it with prepaid.”

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