Virgin Mobile Australia
Virgin Mobile Australia (VMA) was a telecommunications company based in Sydney, Australia. They sold through over 73 retail outlets,[12] including flagship stores in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as via telesales and an online store. Virgin Mobile Australia operated on the Optus network.[13]
On 30 May 2018, Optus announced that they would be phasing out the Virgin Mobile brand and would transfer Australian Virgin Mobile customers over to Optus. They said the phase out would take them roughly two years. On 15 June 2018, Virgin stopped selling all prepaid and postpaid mobile plans to customers. In June 2020 Virgin Mobile announced that they were temporarily extending the closure of Virgin Mobile Australia to 30 September 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic to help customers stay connected.[14]
Virgin Mobile France
Virgin Mobile France was a mobile virtual network operator in France that began as a subsidiary of Virgin Group.
Launched in France on 3 April 2006, Virgin Mobile was the fifth mobile operator on the French market and the first MVNO by number of subscribers, with over 2 million customers. Chaired by Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, Virgin Mobile was commercialized by OMEA TELECOM, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Carphone Warehouse before it was bought in 2015 by the French communication group SFR.
Virgin Mobile India
On 1 March 2008, Virgin launched the Mobile brand in India through a franchise arrangement with NTT DoCoMo.[15] This was Virgin's seventh launch globally and its largest.[16] However, on 29 March 2008, the Department of Telecom (DoT) cleared the deal after clarification from Tata Teleservices indicated that Virgin had not entered India as an MVNO.[17]
Tata Teleservices merged the company into its existing Tata DoCoMo service on 27 March 2015.
Virgin Mobile Peru
Virgin Mobile had a short venture in Peru where they failed to achieve the 2% market share they targeted, and the first MVNO from the Peruvian mobile market was eventually sold to another company: Inkacel of Spain.
Virgin Mobile Qatar
Was introduced as a secondary brand for QTel Qatar Telekom, but, after a process with Vodafone Qatar, Qtel renounced to the Virgin Mobile brand and eventually merged with the original brand name.
Virgin Mobile Singapore
Virgin Singapore was launched in October 2001 as a joint venture with Singtel. The operations were closed down on 11 October 2002 after failing to attract a significant number of customers.[18][19][20]
Failure of the joint venture was attributed to a saturated mobile market and Virgin Mobile's positioning as a "premium" brand.[21]
Virgin Mobile South Africa
Virgin Mobile South Africa (VMSA) is a joint-venture between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Cell C. Virgin Mobile South Africa launched in 2006. In February 2011 it was reported that Cell C's 50% stake in Virgin Mobile is to be sold to Virgin Group of the UK and Calico Investments of the Bahamas. Virgin Mobile closed in South Africa on 17 September 2021 after 15 years operation.[22]
Virgin Mobile UK
Virgin Mobile UK was a mobile virtual network operator, and a division of Virgin Media O2 (joint-owned by Liberty Global and Telefónica). Virgin Mobile UK was the world's first mobile virtual network operator which launched in 1999, and later became part of NTL Telewest. It originally used the coverage of network operator One2One, which later became T-Mobile UK, and then EE.
In 2019, Virgin Mobile UK signed an agreement to move from EE to the Vodafone network.[23] However, it later gave notice of plans to terminate the Vodafone deal in its Q2 2021 financial report, due to Telefónica (owners of O2) acquiring 50% of the business.[24]
Virgin Mobile USA
Virgin Mobile USA was a no-contract mobile virtual network operator owned by Sprint Corporation. It licensed the Virgin Mobile brand from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile USA was headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and provided service to approximately 6 million customers.
Founded in 2001 as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint Corporation, Virgin Mobile USA commenced operations in June 2002 as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), providing services via the Sprint 1900 MHz CDMA network. In 2009, Sprint Nextel bought out joint-venture partner Virgin Group, becoming the sole owner of Virgin Mobile USA.
In June 2017, Virgin Mobile dropped all Android and began to only offer iPhones to new customers under its new "Inner Circle" unlimited plan. Following the discontinuation of the plan in 2018, it began to restore Android devices to its line-up.
In January 2020, Virgin Mobile announced that it would shut down, and transfer its remaining customers to its sister brand Boost Mobile the following month. [27]
