Virgin to expand in India

Virgin Mobile India, a 50: 50 joint venture between Tata Teleservices and the UK-based Virgin group, which provides mobile services on the CDMA platform, will continue its focus on the youth segment and will add 150 more cities in its distribution network in the next three months.

"During the last five months we have reached 60 top cities and we will be adding another 150 cities in the next three months," said Mr M.A. Madhusudan, CEO, Virgin Mobile.

The company’s strategy is to address the youth segment with different services and differentiate the brand in the crowded market place.

"It’s early days, but customers have endorsed our services. Over 40 per cent of subscriptions are coming through referrals from our existing customers," he said.

Virgin estimates that there would be over 50 million new youth subscribers added over the next three years and the company expects to take a 10 per cent share of this incremental market, reaching a subscriber base of 5 million by 2010. Of this, the company expects 60 per cent subscription form the top cities.

The five-month-old company is growing at 40 per cent, and claims to have 30 per cent higher average revenue per user than the industry average.

Virgin Mobile is currently offering pre-paid service only. The company is likely to introduce post-paid services shortly.