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Virgin Mobile offers free airtime for X'mas

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CIOL Bureau
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LONDON: Entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile is selling "hassle free" phones with eight months of free airtime as it fires the first salvo in a seasonal battle for customers seeking Christmas stocking fillers.



Britain's fifth-largest mobile phone company said it would start selling three camera phone models, aimed at the pre-pay market, with a set amount of calls and text messages already included for eight consecutive months.



"A traditional Christmas gift of 'just' a phone will no longer cut the mustard, now that you can give a loved-one a stylish colour camera phone with 8 months' worth of calls and texts ready to go!" the company crowed.



Virgin Mobile, part of Branson's Virgin Group airlines-to-music empire, does not own a network but offers low-cost, no-frills services by piggy-backing over Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile's UK network.



Britain is one of the most competitive mobile phone markets in Europe, with 5 network operators and a rising number of mobile service providers competing for market share.



Virgin Mobile, which muscled into the market in 1999, said its new handsets were made by Philips, Motorola and SonyEricsson and would be priced between 99.99 and 139.99 pounds ($192.3-$269).



"Claimed savings are up to 50 pounds -- but actually nearer 15 pounds," said investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in a research note. But it added that the deal was likely to help Virgin "win" Christmas again.



Armed with a strong brand and simple, youth-centred focus, Virgin Mobile Holdings UK has won about 3.6 million active customers since its launch 5 years ago and has pipped larger rivals in terms of subscriber growth.



But the company lags in terms of customer revenues, and is expected to launch its first more lucrative contract phone deals in the first quarter of next year.

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