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May 7, 2010

Late yesterday, Sprint Nextel revealed additional details about its newly proposed plans to attract more prepaid wireless customers onto its Virgin Mobile USA brand.

The new enticements include a $25 a month Virgin Mobile package aimed at the text messaging youth market.

The wireless carrier also has expanded its Assurance brand and offered a few more details about a 4th brand that will soon offer pay-as-you-go by the minute pricing.

Sprint wouldn't offer any pricing information as of yet, however. The wireless carrier is betting heavily on the prepaid market. The company said it expects over 68 percent of net new additions in 2010 to be customers who choose to go without contracts. As such, Sprint paid $483 million in 2009 to acquire all of Virgin Mobile USA.

Dan Schulman, president of Sprint's prepaid group said “this is the year that prepaid moves to the forefront of the mobile communications industry. In the first quarter of this year, about 53 percent of the mobile gross additions in the U.S. selected prepaid, and we predict that about 71 percent of the net additions in 2010 will choose plans without a contract.”

On Monday, Sprint announced enhancements to its Boost Mobile plans, offering unlimited 411 calls, e-mail and instant messaging to its $50 per month, unlimited rate plan. For those customers on the company's BlackBerry plan, the new offering simply adds unlimited 411 calls for the same $60 a month as if the e-mail and IM options were already part of the package.

Virgin Mobile USA is also introducing three new pricing plans next Wednesday called Beyond Talk that include unlimited messaging, e-mail data and Internet.

Virgin introduced 4 new devices to accompany its Beyond Talk Plans. Customers can buy a BlackBerry Curve 8530 for $300, an LG Rumor Touch for $150, an LG Rumor 2 Qwerty for $90 and a Kyocera Loft Qwerty handset for just $70.

"The way young adults communicate today has changed dramatically over the past couple of years,” the wireless carrier said, citing data from Nielsen on postpaid users ages 18 to 34 from 2007 to 2009.

“Minutes of talk dropped about 11.2 percent while text messages sent and received grew by 155 percent. The amount of data usage within this group grew by well over 1,770 percent during the same time period,” added Virgin.

The $25 Beyond Talk Plan includes unlimited data offerings and 300 minutes of voice calling. The $40 Beyond Talk plan offers the same data offerings but includes 1,200 minutes of voice calling and the $60 plan ups the voice package to an unlimited number of minutes.

BlackBerry data service can be added to any of the plans for an additional $10 per month.

Sprint said its new price plans will include regulatory fees and taxes, although some sales tax may still apply.

The wireless carrier seems to be starting off slower than usual with its fourth prepaid offering, aimed at budget-conscious mobile users who spend less than $30 a month and prefer to buy their wireless service by the minute or the day.

Initially, Virgin's new Beyond Talk Plans will launch in 16 U.S. markets over the next 2 to 3 weeks.

We will keep you posted.

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Source: Sprint Nextel.