Has Virgin Mobile hit a wobble?

[Abe]

I will switch the moment MNP is active. There are probably quite a few people waiting for it. How the hell can you get contract customers to switch without having MNP? It's a real problem to change your cell number, new business cards, contact all the people you know etc.

 

[Tahir Ally]

Vodacom and MTN connects an average of 15000 or more new clients A DAY but Virgin does it in 100 days.....This clearly shows Virgin Mobile made NO IMPACT in the SA cellular industry

 

[MaD]

Vodacom and MTN connects an average of 15000 or more new clients A DAY but Virgin does it in 100 days.....This clearly shows Virgin Mobile made NO IMPACT in the SA cellular industry

And how long have MTN and Vodacom been around?

 

[Prometheus]

Compared to Vodacom, MTN and CellC subscribers (who’s blended ARPUs are sitting at around R135), Maweni says that Virgin subscribers’ ARPUs range between R290 and R300. With Vodacom, MTN and CellC literally handing away free SIM packs, the cost of a Virgin access pack is R89. “It doesn’t help to have plenty of non-income-generating SIM cards in circulation. That’s why our target is the high-end market.”

Well, considering that I will happily pay R300/month for data when I wasn't willing to pay MTN R220 for 350MB with an expiry date attached I think they are they only ones who know what the consumer want and gives it to them.

As part of its strategy to augment its distribution channel, Virgin recently added a Durban flagship store to the one already trading in Johannesburg, plus bringing the 700 retail outlets under the Edcon group on board.

I'm waiting for pnp to get on board so that I can get my airtime at a discount.

Personally I think the only impact they've really has is with the 50c/mb data. Their handsets seem to be more expensive than Voda and MTN's, and you don't get "free minutes" with them either. Ok they're not really free but still.

You get your free minutes in the form of real airtime after spending a certain amount on calls and you can use it for anything.

Hope they come right too, think their main problem as far as pricing's concerned is interconnection charges. But then why don't they offer dirt cheap Virgin to Virgin calls to encourage everyone to join their network?

They do offer dirt cheap smses at 20c between VM users 24/7.

Since Virgin Mobile is a collaboration between Cell C and Virgin, they cannot do anyhting without the approval/agreement of Cell C. They piggy back on Cell C infrastructure.

For all intense purposes, Virgin Mobile might as well be Cell C, imho.

They cannot do anything to rock the boat too strongly. All their hype is just that, hype!

We do need more true competition tho, so I wish them well, as constrained as they might be...

They are a virtual network. Although they use Cell-C's infrastructure they are actually a seperate network and they can make their own decisions. Understandibly they can't go too low since they still have to pay Cell-C for the use of their infrastructure.

Well I sent an e-mail to this guy more than ten days ago and he hasn't even had the courtesy to send even a "I'll get back to you" let alone a reply. How on earth can they survive with an attitude like that?

Here's the address in case you want to try [email protected]

He's the communications manager. He doen't have time for spam. If you have a problem there are the relevant email addys for that and if you want to complement them or discuss something technical, well there are the addys for that as well. It's called delegation. You only email him if you want to offer them cheaper data rates. Neotel and others probably did that already so he's pretty much swamped with emails.

Ja, the 50c/Mb market is the high-end
Plus why issue an R89 data pack when your competition is selling them at 99c? You can't do that and then say you can't afford to have non-income generating SIMs in circulation.

They are selling them for R55 now for about two weeks already. Finweek is a bit behind the times. Plus the sim only costs R5. It's still better than having 29 numbers for every subscriber floating around hey?

I say give your customers a reason AND a means to spend. A cranky network with a high cost of entry and poor coverage is not going to do it for you.

What is the high cost of entry? You start saving right away too.