Virgin Mobile USA has unveiled its new lower rates for all calls. Now customers no longer needs international calling cards or pay for a separate international calling service with Another carrier. Virgin’s customers can now make calls to Brazil and parts of Mexico, Venezuela, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan for only 2 cents/min. These changes have been made effective from 15th October.
Virgin Mobile is offering this without any annual contracts, credit checks plus you can choose Pay As You Go or Monthly Plans including Totally Unlimited calling for just $79.99 per month. In comparison to other Post Paid plans Virgin Mobile USA customers can make calls to Brazil and parts of Mexico, Venezuela, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan for only two cents per minute. Calls to Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Bangladesh, India, South Korea and Thailand are five cents per minute.
New 3G slider Shuttle by PCD exclusively for Virgin Mobile comes with a 2″ screen, a 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, SD card support and a built-in media player. The handset measures 3.9 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches and weighs about 3 ounces.
We reported yesterday that Virgin Mobile plans to launch the Shuttle slider and today goes official. The handset follows recent acquisition of Helio and is also first EV-DO device which will support several Helio’s features. The features include Accuweather, ESPN, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo!, Buddy Beacon and Where, an application delivering local information of near places and things.
The slider has a 2 inches screen, 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, media player, and SD card support. The Shuttle by PCD measures 3.9 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches and weighs about 3 ounces. With 235 minutes of talk time and 2 weeks of standby time it comes preloaded with games. The Shuttle will be available on September 28th for under $100.
Virgin Mobile USA has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Helio, a joint venture between SK Telecom and EarthLink, the deal provides Virgin Mobile USA entry into the postpaid market. This $40 million deal closed has also unveiled the new branding message to highlight the acquisition: “Helio By Virgin Mobile: Plan To Have It All.”
Helio shareholders SK Telecom and EarthLink have received limited partnership units and shares equivalent to 13 million shares of Virgin Mobile USA Class A common stock, with a value of $38 million based on the average closing price of Virgin Mobile USA’s Class A shares, as of two trading days before and two trading days after the date of announcement. In addition, SK Telecom and Virgin Group will each invest $25 million in Virgin Mobile USA for preferred share.
Virgin mobile plans to include the launch of the Shuttle, Virgin Mobile USA’s first handset enabled to integrate such Helio services as Buddy Beacon; and the enhancement of Helio’s $80 A La Carte plan, effective today, to include Unlimited Minutes rather than the current 1500 minute allocation.
Although at this moment the two customer care services and sales operations are separate but Transition of Helio’s approximate 170,000 postpaid members and Virgin Mobile’s 5 million prepaid customers has been seamless and further integration planned over the next several months
