Branson's Virgin Mobile Opens In India

Mumbai, India (AHN)-- British billionaire Richard Branson launched the Virgin Mobile brand in India on Sunday, promising to deliver a more tailored, more relevant offering to India's young population.

Virgin Mobile will offer music, entertainment and news on India's film industry, sports and stock market and will be marketed under the Virgin Mobile brand name through a franchise arrangement with Tata Teleservices.

TTSL, is the second largest CDMA operator in India with 22 million customers. Branson is aiming to corner more than 10 per cent of the country's growing youth market within three years and generate more than 350 billion dollars in annual revenues, by focusing on a single segment and by delivering innovative services.

The estimated population in India of people between 15 and 30 years is 400 million, almost six times the whole of the UK population; and the cellular market is reportedly expanding by eight million subscribers per month.

This is Virgin's seventh launch globally and its largest investment to date in India. The company and TTSL have also jointly established 'Virgin Mobile India Ltd' to develop the new branded service.

For starters, Virgin Mobile will be launched in 50 cities, and in a year's time in over 1,000 cities. Specially designed handsets in the Rs 2,000-5,000 (50 to 125 dollars) range would be offered by TTSL, but customers are free to buy CDMA handsets separately, since Virgin would be offering a SIM-card based CDMA service, the first such offer in India.

The international Virgin Mobile businesses act as independent entities, usually in a partnership between Branson's Virgin Group and an existing phone company.

The company was the world's first Mobile Virtual Network Operator when it was launched in the United Kingdom in 1999.