Virgin Mobile USA Added 216,000 Subscribers in Q4 '08

Virgin Mobile USA has announced that fourth quarter net customer additions were approximately 216,000 with churn for the fourth quarter 2008 of 4.8%. The CDMA based MVNO ended the year with approximately 5.38 million customers, including customers added with the acquisition of Helio, which closed on August 22, 2008. The Company attracted more than 3.3 million gross customer additions during the year.

"The initiatives we have implemented throughout 2008 have begun to show clear benefits to our results," said Virgin Mobile USA CEO Dan Schulman.

"Our new offers have helped lead to strong customer growth and improved retention as consumers look for value and flexibility during uncertain economic times," Schulman said. "Our hybrid plans continue to grow in popularity, accounting for over 50% of our gross adds in October and November and 29% of our subscriber base at the end of November. We expect the growth of these plans to lead to continued improvement in ARPU trends in the fourth quarter of 2008."

Virgin Mobile USA expects to release complete financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2008 on March 3, 2009.

Sprint Nextel increased its payments to Virgin Mobile USA for each additional subscriber for the final three months of last year, from US$2.50 to US$4.50 - and waived its upper limit on commission payments.

Posted to the site on 7th January 2009