Virgin Mobile, which recently announced plans to acquire Helio, continues to mature while mostly avoiding growing pains. With 5.1 million customers and well over a billion dollars in revenue last year, the MVNO seems well situated to expand. VM has consistently stood apart from the pack by continuing to offer no-contract plans and in the process attracted a lot of younger, no credit or bad credit customers. With Helio, VM plans to grow along with their customer base by being able to offer more advanced services.
No longer just a ‘kid-phone’ company, VM should be able to keep attracting customers and not only keep them talking, but using rich web features too. The Helio Ocean phone looks to be just the next step in the game for VM.
For the immediate future, VM isn’t deviating from its pay-as-you-go business model. Just last month they announced their new Totally Unlimited plan with no annual contract or roaming charges starting from $79.99 per month.