Virgin Mobile USA Launches Ad-Supported Free Minutes, In Attempt to Stem Decline
Virgin Mobile USA, 
the MVNO pioneer which is seeing a flatline-to-decreasing growth in its business, is starting a new service inspired in part by others: the service, called SugarMama, lets people earn one minute of talking time by watching 30-second commercials on a computer or receiving SMS on their phones, then answering questions to prove they were, in fact, paying attention. The subscribers can earn a maximum of 75 minutes per month, by watching these ads from the likes of Pepsi, Microsoft’s Xbox game console and a youth antismoking campaign called Truth.
A good counter-point from Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum Research: the kinds of consumers willing to swap their time for airtime were not likely to be big spenders. “If you’re too cheap to buy a minute of air time, how are you going to afford an Xbox?” Entner said. The people likely to earn minutes for free “are people who want to avoid costs at any cost.”
VMUSA is 49 percent owned by Sprint Nextel, and it runs on Sprint’s network. The service has been in losses from the start and Sprint has fulfilled its obligation to fund the joint venture. From Sprint’s annual report for last year, “Since Virgin Mobile USA’s inception, we have contributed approximately $180 million to the venture in the form of cash and discounted network services, thereby satisfying 100% of our original commitments. In 2004, we advanced $10 million to Virgin Mobile USA in the form of a loan to be repaid in 2005. An additional $10 million was advanced in the form of a loan in January 2005.”
This gets more interesting: “In July 2005, we received approximately $200 million from Virgin Mobile USA representing a loan repayment of $20 million and a return of capital of $180 million resulting in a negative investment balance of $180 million as of December 31, 2005. Virgin Mobile USA funded the distribution with proceeds from a loan.”
Great Idea!
need to let people get more then that.
Look at the coverage map. It appears to me, the lack of growth is caused by lack of coverage, no signal. If you live in the the west, like I do(WA), there is estentially "no coverage" once you leave the city limits. Most people look first at coverage. No coverage, no sale.
The basic phone charges are very inexpensive compared to most others and the payment plans easy to understand. This makes it ideal for the retired on limited budgets like myself, however the phone is useless if I cannot use it on a vacation. So why not a roaming charge plan for those that use their phone while moving around or on vacation out of the coverage area. It would be easy for the Sprint-Nextel system and I would certainly be willing to pay additional costs for the piece of mind for a signal. That way the phone could be used for emergency, motel or what ever. This additional coverage would certainly induce more possible customers to buy and more income to VM for services.
Lack of marketing. I found VM on the internet when specifically looking for a cell phone. But later found packaged phones at retail vendor sites but with no explanation or information as to what they were about. The clerks know nothing about the system. Unless the vendors are buying these phones, it would seem a wast of money to place them there. Marketing in the west appears to be very marginal.
Maybe you have some young users now but the baby boomers are going to be the majority buyers. Why not lock onto them now while you can, with a reasonable price and coverage.
want my free minutes
can i no how to get my free minites
thanks
these mintues have not came to my phone.
Im really glad !!anout it..when i cant get to the store right away i can get them..im so glad thats alot..
yeah
he should not have done it