Virgin Mobile Launched: Not An MVNO; Break Even In 3 Years; 10 New Services

Well, it’s official, and the website says – “It’s time to think hatke” (differently): The Virgin Group has announced a ‘brand franchise’ agreement with Tata Teleservices in India for Virgin Mobile (NYSE: VM). The Virgin-TTSL joint venture is called Virgin Mobile India, but Virgin’s investment or share were not disclosed. Jaime Heywood (profile) is the Deputy CEO of Virgin Mobile India.

MVNO? Richard Brandson says that it’s NOT an MVNO, but “a brand extension” plan. Both companies have the freedom to work with other partners, and enter into similar agreements with other players: “In another nine months, when the new GSM players start rolling out their services, we would look to offer similar services on GSM as well”
Terms of the deal:not been disclosed, but the Hindu mentions “a royalty fee”, while ET mentions a pre-agreed fee for every user buying the youth-focused service.
Targets: break even in three years, at a subscriber base of five million. Target Group is in the age group of between 15 and 30, an estimated population of 400 million. The initial launch will be in 50 cities, and will be expanded to over 1000 cities in a years time. More on the strategy here.
The Services: Virgin is launching Sim Card based CDMA services. The Virgin services will have “10 telecom industry firsts” including paid calls (Rs. 10 paise credit for ever 60 seconds of incoming calls), one touch VAS access from every Virgin Mobile branded handset and ‘Call more for less’…(Ed: RCom has one touch VAS access, so not a first). They’re going to offer unlimited access to the content portal VBytes for a daily charge of Rs. 5. Details of services here.
The Content Providers: IMI Mobile, Hungama Mobile, OnMobile, Nazara, Indiagames, Mast Mobile Media, FTV, EROS, Universal, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures, Mauj, Paramount, T-Series, Warner Bros.
The phones…Bling phones: six handset models, priced between $50-62.5 (Rs. 2000-2500) each acc to Bloomberg, and $50-125 as per Reuters. Check out the phones here.
Distribution: 15000 handset and 40,000 top-up outlets, Virgin Mobile Kiosks and shops in shops. Points of sale include Oxigen, Univercell, Cellcom, Croma, MobileNXT, The Mobile Store and hotspot. This is what the kiosk will look like.

Download the Virgin Mobile launch presentation here.

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