British entrepreneur Richard Branson evaded questions this morning about the possible takeover of Virgin Mobile by NTL and instead used the press’ attention to launch an attack on French operators, who he accused of “ripping off” French consumers.
As the Virgin Group launched mobile phone services in France, Branson told reporters that Virgin had examined the French market and found “the bulk of people in France have been ripped off big-time.”
Virgin’s boss has teamed up with Europe’s largest mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse to provide French consumers with free text messages by piggy-backing on the network of dominant mobile phone operator Orange.
The new service will, according to Branson, appeal to those who are unable to benefit from preferable pricing schemes he argues are only available for wealthy mobile users. “The poor, the students and the middle-classes have been paying for subsidising the rich, who can get bundles that are not bad,” Branson said. He added: “Eighty-five percent of the market is paying 50 per cent more than the average consumer in the rest of the world.”
France has been viewed as one of Europe’s least competitive mobile markets for some time. Last year, two of the country’s leading operators were fined for collusion.
Branson explained that after years of fruitless debate, pressure from regulators had finally given Virgin an opportunity to crack the French market with an MVNO operation. The Virgin boss is aiming at luring a million users within three years.
It offers pre-paid services at Eur0.42 a minute compared with Eur0.48-0.55 offered by the competition.
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