MVNOs

Cricket Communications is offering its customers some new perks. Actually, it launched a new opt-in service called MyPerks that delivers free content like weather, gas prices, trivia or celebrity gossip to the phone's idle screen. The content is accompanied by "occasional offers" from Cricket's advertising partners including Jack in the Box, 1-800-Flowers, ESPN, Wal-mart, Dairy Queen, Progressive Insurance and Jiffy Lube.

All content and offers are currently tailored by location. Cricket anticipates adding targeting by user preference in the near future to make the service more relevant.

Once users have downloaded the MyPerks application, they'll start receiving their desired content when the phone is idle and have the option to click on the banner ad or ignore it to get right to the content. Because the service takes advantage of the phone's idle time, it doesn't interrupt phone calls, text messaging or other activities.

Cricket MyPerks is powered by Mobile Posse and is currently available for download on select Motorola, Samsung and UTStarcom phones.

Despite the difficult economy, Virgin Mobile, the joint venture between Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Sprint Nextel Corp, announced a profit in Q3 2008 according to Reuters—due in large part to its acquisition of Helio.

Virgin Mobile shares increased 25 percent on the news. The company said the results proved the success of the Helio deal—to some surprise, given Helio's dwindling fortunes as a mobile media-focused carrier.

"These results clearly demonstrate that we've done quite a good job in making the Helio customers immediately profitable," Chief Executive Dan Schulman told Reuters Monday. Now the hard part: continuing to grow Helio's stagnant customer base, which numbered about 140,000 at last check.

Virgin Mobile USA announced an agreement with mobile marketing firm GPShopper to add Slifter, its location-aware shopping application, FierceMobileContent reports. Some analysts are predicting that mobile couponing could take off now that the economy is tanking (hey, we'll take any good news we can get at this point).

For the uninitiated, Slifter uses location-based search to let users search over 300 million products at more than 150,000 local and online retailers. They can also browse price and availability, and receive detailed directions to the nearest store, according to the article.

Users can also share coupons with family and friends, and can put together mobile "shopping lists." If you're on Virgin Mobile, try it out via the VirginXL portal in your cell phone's Web browser.

Virgin Mobile, the sole remaining MVNO in the U.S., announced that it has signed a deal with Buzzd, a location-based social network and city guide, TechCrunch reports. The deal will let Virgin Mobile handsets broadcast local entertainment information to other Virgin Mobile customers in the same general proximity.

The report said that "Buzzd on Virgin Mobile" will be accessible on the carriers WAP deck, delivering event and venue information, reviews, restaurant ratings, and information on other popular places according to the folks around them. Register by texting 'join' to 96321 on any Virgin Mobile handset, or head to Virgin XL and click n the Buzzd link.

Mobile virtual network provider Virgin Mobile isn't doing so well as of late, Engadget Mobile reports, with decreasing profits as well as a decreasing ARPU (average revenue per user). However, the blog points out that things can't be all bad since they're still actually turning a profit, which no other MVNO in the U.S. was capable of doing.

The company said that it thinks "it'll turn things around heading into '09 with the addition of Helio to its portfolio, which it confirms will be leveraged to offer new data services and feature-rich handsets, [which are] both concepts that bare-bones Virgin isn't accustomed to offering in the States," according to the blog. Mobile media-focused Helio did offer a nice array of music, video, and social networking services on its phones, so it remains to be seen how Virgin Mobile will leverage that going forward.

RCR Wireless News is reporting that Helio has closed four of its only five retail outlets, only a month and a half after Virgin Mobile USA's announcement to buy the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).

The report said that the NYC store remains open, but the other four stores—in Santa Monica, San Diego, Palo Alto, and one in Denver—have all ceased operations.

Helio spokesperson Rick Heineman said that as far as the New York store is concerned, "We do not have a time table other than for it to be open right now... When the deal closes, [it's] up to Virgin Mobile."

Virgin Mobile initially planned to cut Helio's workforce from 570 to 200; some of the employees in the stores were given jobs with Virgin Mobile, but most were let go.

(Image credit: FierceWireless)

Right on the heels of Virgin Mobile's $19.99 TNT! handset launch, the popular mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is dropping another flip phone on the unsuspecting public: the $50 UTStarcom Arc.

As FierceWireless reports, and like the TNT!, the Arc is intended to be another of the carrier's "reasonably" priced phones that are geared toward users who want a handset primarily for making calls and texting.

It comes with a basic VGA camera, Bluetooth, IM, mobile Web, and e-mail capability. Interesting, in light of the fact that UTStarcom recently decided to dump its handset business. Hope the new buyers like the Arc.

Virgin Mobile just released a new handset called the TNT! (including, of all things, an exclamation point). According to Engadget Mobile, the Kyocera-sourced flip phone costs just $19.99 and doesn't really come with much in the way of features—you get a speakerphone, a color primary display, a monochrome outer display, basic WAP-based Web access, text messaging, and that's about it.

But it's a cheap way to use up prepaid minutes on the popular MVNO—and, incidentally, the only one left standing now that the others have all fallen by the wayside. Regardless, for all those times someone asked you what's a good phone to get if they just want one for emergencies and don't want to pay a lot—or even anything—per month, here's one answer.

Blyk, the European MVNO that gives its subscribers free talk time and texts in exchange for viewing ads on their phones, appears to be making a success of its business model where others have failed before.

OK, it may still be too early to declare it successful, but Blyk is getting its name out there and sponsoring the Rise free music festival that's happening on July 13, MarketingWeek reports.

As part of the sponsorship, Blyk's 65,000 members will receive a text message that includes the festival line-up plus the ability to download free wallpapers and ringtones from festival performers.

After seeing numerous MVNOs like Amp'd Mobile, ESPN Mobile, Disney Mobile and now Helio crash and burn, it would appear, from a US perspective anyway, that the virtual operator model is doomed to failure, with maybe the exception of new Helio parent Virgin Mobile USA.

Worldwide, however, MVNOs are expected to flourish. Well, survive, anyway. New figures from Informa forecast some 150 million MVNO subscribers by 2013, when they'll account for a whole 3% of the mobile market.

Informa even launched MVNODirectory.com, a Web site featuring all sorts of MVNO data. Apparently, back in November, there were some 255 active MVNOs around the world. The majority, 151 of them, were in Europe, 63 in North America and the rest spread out in other regions.

Based on those numbers, it's not hard to see why Informa expects 63 million of those 150 million subscribers in 2013 to be in Western Europe.