The most telling sign that you’re doing something right: other companies try to one-up you. If you make what you consider a big announcement and no one says boo, then it probably wasn’t all that effective. But if you can make a competitor jump and make a counter move, you just might be onto something. This is the case right now with T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile of Sprint Prepaid Group.
Late last month T-Mobile rebranded itself as an Un-Carrier, since it did away with contracts and subsidies. Those are long standing institutions in the cellular industry, but consumers appear to be searching for alternatives. While titans Verizon and AT&T continue to add customers, prepaid is making a strong push. Carriers such as Cricket and MetroPCS continue to add customers, while MNVOs of major networks are also growing.
Virgin Mobile used to be an MVNO of the Sprint network, though Sprint had a stake in it for many years before purchasing it outright a few years ago. It is now part of Sprint Prepaid Group, along with Boost Mobile, which Sprint acquired when it bought Nextel. Virgin made waves when it introuced its Beyond Talk plans, which originally featured an unlimited data and messaging plan for $25 per month. They’ve since increased it to $35, but the excellent deals still remain.
Previously competition with T-Mobile was mostly with Sprint, since both offered postpaid services. But with T-Mobile horning in on prepaid, it’s apparently time for Sprint’s Virgin Mobile to fight back. They recently launched a campaign that not only directly compares the services (with Virgin winning out, of course), but also offering customers a $100 credit when they switch from T-Mobile to Virgin. That’s quite an incentive, and Virgin says it’s only part of the savings.
The comparison, as you can see, uses the Samsung Galaxy SII, which is a good one given its slot as a value smartphone. At $5 per month less than T-Mobile, and with a phone that is $114 less, Virgin is boasting a savings of $334 over two years, which includes the credit for switching.
The promotion drives home the new landscape in the mobile world. In the past Sprint might have made comparisons to a new T-Mobile offering. Then again, perhaps not, because Sprint was the larger player and had little reason to make such comparisons. But T-Mobile is larger than any current prepaid carrier, and so is ruffling some feathers. This is Virgin’s way of trying to hit a relative giant with a slingshot.
Virgin doesn’t make any misrepresentations in the comparison graphic, and in fact note an advantage of T-Mobile’s — its mobile hotspot feature — albeit in smaller print. They also make the assumption that their 3G EVDO network is faster than the throttled speeds on T-Mobile, which I don’t think is necessarily true.
You can check out the promotion for yourself and see if it works for you. It is pretty clear, though, that the competition in prepaid just got a little fiercer.
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