Virgin Mobile USA customers will soon find themselves on the company’s sister-brand, Boost Mobile.
This comes as T-Mobile and Sprint are inching closer to their merger being approved.
Boost Mobile will be sold to Dish when the merger does get approved, but Virgin Mobile USA will essentially cease to exist. The Virgin Mobile USA brand hasn’t been talked about much in the merger discussion and that’s because it is one of the smallest carriers in the nation.
Virgin Mobile began notifying customers that they will be moving to Boost
This week, Virgin Mobile began notifying its customers that they are going to be moved over to Boost Mobile. Both carriers are MVNO’s that are owned by Sprint and run on the Sprint network. So it’s not a big deal, moving customers from Virgin Mobile to Boost Mobile, seeing as they run on the same network.
The notice stated that beginning the week of February 2, Virgin Mobile customer accounts will be moved to their sister-brand.
A Virgin Mobile spokesperson said that “consolidating the brands under one cohesive, efficient and effective prepaid team.”
This is something that really should have happened many years ago. Sprint having two prepaid brands under its umbrella never really made sense, seeing as they were competing in some aspects.
Virgin Mobile has been in decline for years
Much like its parent company Sprint.
Virgin Mobile has been the smaller of the two MVNO’s under Sprint’s umbrella. But it is a brand that is used around the world in many other countries. Luckily after this all said and done, Virgin will get the name back from Sprint, to use as they wish. And there are still some die-hard Virgin Mobile fans out there, which might surprise many of you.
In 2018, Virgin laid off nearly two-thirds of its workers. Luckily about a third of those were transferred to Boost, so they didn’t lose their job entirely. And ended its partnership with Target that year. Last year, Walmart and Best Buy dropped the brand altogether. Making it even tougher for Virgin Mobile to sell phones and gain customers.
Given this, it’s not hard to see why Virgin has had trouble staying afloat in recent years and why it’s been on the decline. Both Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile have been on the decline, thanks to other prepaid carriers joining the fray and being very competitive. Like T-Mobile’s MetroPCS and AT&T’s Cricket. Both of which were undercutting both of Sprint’s brands.
For customers, the only real difference they will see in being moved over to Boost Mobile, is a branding change. They will still be running on Sprint’s network and likely pay the same price. Oh, and their phones will still work too.