Virgin Mobile on Thursday announced plans to capture the burgeoning youth market by offering a revolutionary free SMS proposition where customers just need to pay for first 3 SMSs daily and thereafter 100 SMSs are free. First three local SMSs will be charged 50 paise each and first three national SMS Rs 1.50 each. One also gets paid for incoming with 10 paise credit per minute, which can be used for any kind of usage like voice, SMS, VAS or data services. The YoYo plan provides the opportunity for a user to recharge with Rs 28 and get 700 local minutes at 10 paise per minute for 30 days.
The new free SMS offer is available to all Virgin Mobile subscribers across the country without any extra monthly commitment/upfront payment or pack. All new subscribers and the existing subscriber who are already on the new 50 paise STD local tariff will get this SMS benefit by default from Thursday onwards, while the customers who are on the old 50 paise local tariff can avail this benefit by recharging their account by a mere Rs 12 recharge coupon which is available across 50,000 outlets in the country.
M A Madhusudan, chief executive officer, Virgin Mobile, said at a press conference in Bangalore: ?Our research shows that youth have a high propensity to consume mobile services and are looking for solutions that give them the flexibility to use mobile services as per their need. Youth around the country send six times as many SMSs and have a constant desire to connect and share with their large network of friends, peer group and family. They use SMS as an important device to lead a life of their choice, zoning people in and out from their world as and when they want to and also use it as their secret messaging service (SMS). But, due to voice text pricing parity, sending SMSs are expensive and better deals are usually available only with packs or upfront commitment. However, now with our new free SMS proposition we believe that youth will take up to this medium in a big way and it will become the new voice of the youth.?
To appeal to the youth segment, Virgin Mobile has recently introduced two new handsets, vDesire and vRage into the market. vDesire comes with prepaid connection and lifetime validity at Rs 1,699. vRage is available in the market at a bundle price of Rs 1,899 including Rs 99 SUK + Life time Validity (worth Rs 295). This is a colour phone with FM, in fact all Virgin Mobile phones are color and FM enabled.
The young market that Karnataka is, little surprise that Virgin Mobile has received a heartening response from the state. ?Today it is one of our fastest growing markets. Virgin Mobile branded services can be used in as many as 334 towns across Karnataka. With Virgin Mobile ARPUs 30% healthier than the industry average and with the youth accounting for 50 percent of the subscribers in the state, I am confident that with our youth centric product and services mix we can capture a sizeable chunk of this consumer segment in the near future,? Madhusudan said.