Sprint prepaid efforts turn towards Virgin Mobile with plan alterations
Sprint is looking to regain some prepaid mojo with its Virgin Mobile USA brand rolling out a trio of new “unlimited” plans packed with data and the carrier’s recently launched music streaming service.
The new plans begin at $30 per month for unlimited domestic calling, messaging and 500 megabytes of unthrottled data; move to $40 per month for 4 gigabytes of data; and top out at $50 per month for 6 GB of data. The plans replace previous offerings that for $35 per month offered 1 GB of data; for $45 per month offered 3 GB of data; and for $55 per month offered 8 GB of data.
All three new plans include Virgin Mobile USA’s unlimited streaming music service, which was launched last October and initially limited to plans beginning at $35 per month. The service is similar to T-Mobile US’ “Music Freedom” service in that it allows for unlimited streaming of select music services without impacting a customer’s data allotment.
Sprint late last month altered its Boost Mobile prepaid pricing, rolling out new rate plans targeting multiline accounts and offering to pay customers to watch advertising content through a downloadable application. Boost Mobile also now offers access to an unlimited streaming music platform.
Sprint said it lost 491,000 direct prepaid customers during the final three months of last year, which in turn dragged down what would have been a strong quarter of growth for the beleaguered carrier. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure excused the dip by stating the carrier was not interested in chasing lower profit customers, which look to have found refuge in the arms of T-Mobile US and AT&T Mobility, both of which reported an identical 469,000 net prepaid additions during the fourth quarter of last year.
“Prepaid has been fiercely competitive,” Claure said. “We had to decide where we wanted to compete and that was more focus on postpaid. We have a good value proposition in prepaid, but are not going to fight for unprofitable customers. Not adding customers for the sake of adding customers.”
However, Claure did say Sprint was looking to reposition its prepaid efforts, with a short-term focus on the Boost Mobile brand while it planned to go in a new direction for its Virgin Mobile USA brand.
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