Poor Sales For Virgin Mobile TV Handsets

Virgin Mobile is thought to have sold less than 10,000 handsets for its recently launched mobile-TV service, despite a £2.5 million advertising campaign.

Virgin Mobile has also recently cut the price of the Lobster phone, the only handset which is able to receive the service, from £199.99 to £99 for pre-pay customers..

A report in today’s Guardian quotes industry insiders as saying that Virgin Mobile has signed up “significantly” fewer than 10,000 customers.

The mobile phone operator became the first operator to offer BT Movio in the UK on October 1 2006, to customers on monthly contracts of £25 or more (see BT Announces Partners For Mobile TV Service).

Users of the service are able to watch simulcasts of BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and E4 as well as ITN news.

Almost 90% of TV programmes from the five broadcasters are available on BT Movio, equating to 730 hours of TV entertainment available to mobile users each week.

The Guardian report also says that whilst Virgin Mobile’s chief executive, Alan Gow, refused to give a handset figure, he did say that mobile TV was still in its infancy and sales had been hampered by the fact there is only one handset on offer.

Virgin Mobile: www.virginmobile.com