Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile is a brand used by many mobile phone service providers based in the United Kingdom and operating in India, Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States and France; the brand survived only briefly in Singapore. The international Virgin Mobile businesses each act as independent entities, usually in a partnership between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and an existing phone company. Virgin Group provides the brand, and the phone company operates the network infrastructure.

Virgin Mobile was the world's first Mobile Virtual Network Operator when it launched in the United Kingdom in 1999. It does not maintain its own network but instead contracts to use the existing network(s) of other providers.

In the United Kingdom, Virgin Mobile uses the T-Mobile network. In the USA,Sprint Nextel is the networker.There is no roaming to other networks in the United States. In Australia, Virgin Mobile operates on the Optus network. In Canada, it uses the Bell Mobility network. In France, it uses Orange SA.Virgin Mobile South Africa uses the Cell C network for coverage across South Africa. In India, it uses the network of Tata Indicom. These networks use two different mobile telephony standards, GSM and CDMA. GSM is used in the UK, South Africa, Australia and France. CDMA is used in the US, India and Canada.GSM was lanched in India recently.

In all countries, Virgin Mobile offers prepaid mobile phone pay-as-you-go service. In the UK, US, Canada, Australia and South Africa, Virgin Mobile also offers a post-paid option to approved customers. They are also looking to establish another setup in Pakistan. Already very common in the UK at the time of Virgin Mobile's launch, prepaid wireless service was a very small part of the US wireless market. Nevertheless, competitive pricing, and a "no-frills" approach ensured a small but significant market share.

In June 2009, Virgin Mobile announced and started a pay-as-you go mobile data program called "Broadband2Go" in the United States, using Novatel Wireless hardware, and available exclusively through the Best Buy chain of stores originally, but now available at other retailers including RadioShack and The Source (in Canada). It uses a USB flash drive type device plugged into a user's computer for internet connectivity.

Virgin Mobile is the official sponsor for pop superstar Britney Spears' current world tour, The Circus: Starring Britney Spears. 

On July 28, 2009 Sprint agreed to pay $483 million to purchase Virgin Mobile USA. The Federal Trade Commission has since given the go-ahead on the acquisition. Virgin Mobile USA was originally conceived as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint, and uses Sprint's cellular bandwidth in the U.S. Sprint officials said they anticipated retaining the Virgin Mobile name after the deal closes.

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Virgin Mobile Canada experienced substantial growth in 2008, launching approximately 60 "Virgin Mini Stores" across the country. Virgin Mini Stores (VMS) are kiosks usually located in shopping malls that especially target the 18-35 yr. old demographic.

For four years running, Virgin Mobile Canada has received J.D. Power and Associates' annual award for Highest Customer Satisfaction for Prepaid Wireless.

Post-paid plans were introduced to Virgin Canada in February 2008.

Bell Mobility acquired Virgin Mobile Canada in May 2009 for CAN$142 million.

Virgin Singapore was launched in October 2001 as a joint venture with Singtel. The operations were closed down by October 2002 after failing to attract a significant number of customers.

Failure of the joint venture was attributed to a saturated mobile market and Virgin Mobile's positioning as a "premium" brand.

On 2008-03-01, Virgin launched the Mobile brand in India through a franchise arrangement with Tata Teleservices.This is Virgin’s seventh launch globally and its largest investment to date in India, said Branson, noting that the Indian market was very attractive, growing like none other in the world. The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) had opposed the tie-up, alleging that it amounted to Virgin's entry into India as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) which is currently not allowed in India, due to prevalent regulations.However on 2008-03-29, the Department of Telecom (DoT) cleared the deal after clarification from Tata Teleservices indicated that Virgin had not entered India as an MVNO.