News 2001
Virgin Mobile moves into Dixons in time for Christmas
13/12/2001
Virgin Mobile, the UK's fifth network, today announced that it is to extend its retail partnership with the Dixons Group, Europe's largest retailer of consumer electricals, by retailing its service through Dixons' 316 stores from tomorrow (December 14th 2001).
The deal follows Virgin Mobile's successful move into The Link, the Dixons Group's specialist mobile communications chain, just over a month ago. Sales of Virgin Mobile at The Link are growing rapidly.
This is the second phase of an ongoing partnership with the Dixons Group, which could see Virgin Mobile expand into other Dixons Group stores including Currys and PC World. Such a partnership would take the number of retail outlets stocking Virgin Mobile to over 6,000 in the UK.
Stuart Carson, marketing director of Dixons, said: "Following the introduction of Virgin Mobile services at The Link, extending our partnership with Virgin Mobile into Dixons was the next natural step. We are confident that the Virgin Mobile brand will prove attractive to our customers in the run up to Christmas."
opVirgin Mobile's Sir Richard Branson said: "We're confident our move into Dixons and The Link this year will mark the beginning of a massive expansion for Virgin Mobile into the rest of the Dixons Group. This will significantly boost our presence on the High Street, and help us to entice higher-value customers to try our service."
From December 14, Dixons will be offering Virgin Mobile's service with the Trium Mars phone - competitively priced at £69.99, including connection to Virgin Mobile and £5 worth of free airtime. Dixons will also be selling Virgin Mobile service packs, and £10 and £20 airtime vouchers. The Link offers Virgin Mobile service packs, and the Siemens C35 phone at £99.99. Both retailers plan to add more phones to their Virgin Mobile range early next year.
The Dixons Group plans to support the new partnership with a weighty press and advertising campaign.
Virgin Mobile and Dixons make buying and owning a mobile phone simple as there are no hidden costs - you own your phone straight off and you only pay for the calls you make. There's no contract or monthly line rental to worry about and one simple tariff means that calls are about the cheapest around: standard calls cost 15p per minute for the first 5 minutes of use each day, then only 5p per minute after that. Virgin Mobile's cashback tariff, The Big Bonus, also means that registered customers spending £30 or more on calls a month get 10% back as free airtime.
More information from:
Dixons Group
Kellie Evans, Dixons Group press office, 01442 354515 (24 hours), kellie.evans@dixons.co.uk
Richard Leonard, Le Fevre Communications, 01865 202666 , richard.leonard@lefevre.co.uk
Virgin Mobile
Press office on 0845 600 6272 or pressoffice@virginmobile.com
Steven Day - 07931 777777
Alison Bonny - 07802 430276
Julia Clark - 07941 230500
About The Dixons Group:
The Dixons Group is Europe's largest specialist retailer of consumer electronics. It has over 1,250 stores across the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Nordic region and Spain. It trades through Dixons, Currys, PC World and The Link in the UK and Eire, Elkjøp in the Nordic region and PC City in Spain and on-line in France. It specialises in the sale of high technology consumer electronics, personal computers, domestic appliances, photographic equipment, communication products and related financial and after sales services.
About Virgin Mobile:
Virgin Mobile is now established as the most successful virtual network operator in the world, and is the UK's fifth network. Since its launch in November 1999 it has attracted 1.3 million customers, making it one of the fastest growing mobile phone companies in history.
Virgin Mobile is a 50:50 joint venture company between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Deutsche Telekom's One 2 One, and is the UK's first mobile virtual operator.
It has scored a number of firsts, including being the first operator to scrap peak rate calls, introduce a daily discounting tariff, the first company in the world to introduce an integrated MP3 mobile phone and the first company to offer all of its customers a content rich voice portal with the launch of its 4321 service.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile phones are available direct on 0845 6000 600; on the web at www.virgin.com/mobile; or on the High Street at over 5,000 outlets including Virgin Megastore, Our Price, V.SHOP, Sainsbury, Tesco, WH Smith, Co-op, Asda, Somerfield, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Morrisons, Phone People, The Link, Dixons and Carphone Warehouse.
