Virgin Mobile Hybrid Plan is their Bread Butter

Sometimes more subscribers isn’t always better. The bad news for Virgin Mobile that they lost a net 269,000 subscribers in the second quarter. One would think it’s tough to find a silver lining in that, but it’s certainly there for them.




Beyond their acquisition by Sprint Nextel, Virgin saw a consumer shift to more profitable hybrid plans. This allowed their net income to rise while their operating revenue fell. So while Virgin is losing customers like its to-be parent company, at least Virgin is seeing those remaining customers migrate to plans which benefit the company.

It makes sense that hybrid plans — those which mimic contract plans by offering a set number of minutes for a fixed monthly price — would bring in more revenue. When balances run low, they’ll conserve,delaying the purchase of another top-up card. But with hybrid plans,the customer is already locked into a set amount monthly. That gives Virgin a steady income.

Over the next quarter, Virgin will likely focus on getting more customers on hybrid plans, even if it means losing subscribers overall. Perhaps this will be part of an industry-wide movement, where pay-as-you-go customers will move to a carrier like Net10, which specialized in pay-as-you-go, while hybrid customers will pick up Virgin or Boost Mobile.

BSNL revises many its plans

Some more tariff revisions have been announced for BSNL. The state-owned telecom operator has reduced rent of some of its post-paid mobile plans. The One India plan 299 has been merged with plan 225. Free Roaming plan 550 has been merged with plan 525. Subscribers of plan 299 and plan 550 will be migrated by default to plan 225 and plan 525 respectively. Tariff under plan 490 has been rationalized and fixed monthly charge has been reduced from Rs.490 to Rs.425.



Some new talk plans in place of existing ones for its post-paid customers have also been introduced.

BSNL has replaced some of its existing plans like Plan-299, Plan-490 and Plan-550 with three new plans, offering lower tariff and reduced call rates, BSNL said in a statement.It has also launched an unlimited night calling facility with its Plan-525 and Plan-999, while free GPRS would be made available for higher tariff options like Plan-725 and Plan-999.

The telecom major is also offering a rebate of two month’s fixed monthly charges under the annual payment option. Under SMS-Power Plan, messaging rates have been reduced by 75 per cent for local SMSs and by 50 per cent for national ones.