Virgin Reviews Singapore Plans

SINGAPORE -- The Virgin Group and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) announce today their intention to stop selling mobile phone products and services in Singapore via their Virgin Mobile joint venture, following the shareholders’ recent review of its strategy in the light of weak economic and market conditions in the country. The two partners have decided to concentrate on their highly successful and rapidly growing Virgin Mobile joint venture in Australia, which will not be affected by today’s announcement. Both partners also have their own investments in mobile operations elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.In light of difficult local retail trading circumstances in Singapore, since September 11th last year, both the Virgin Group and its partner SingTel view the market as too saturated to sustain an otherwise successful virtual network operator model. The subscriber net growth for mobile phone operators in the Singapore market has not been sufficient to sustain a new entrant in this mature market place. The Virgin Mobile business in Singapore started trading in October 2001 and has about 30,000 customers. Comparable figures for the successful and separate Virgin Mobile operations in the UK and Australia are 1.8 million and 220,000 customers respectively.Commenting on the decision, Jonathan Marchbank, Virgin Mobile Singapore Managing Director says “The Singapore mobile market is one of the region’s smallest and most mature with a large number of existing players relative to its population and very little growth. As a new operator we are feeling the full impact from operating in a very competitive environment, which is aggravated by the prolonged economic downturn.”Existing customers will have until 9th August 2002, to call the Virgin Mobile hotline, 9120-0001, to indicate if they prefer to be transferred to SingTel Mobile, in which case they will keep their mobile number, or if they choose other alternatives. Customers who opt for other options can still use Virgin Mobile services until 11th October 2002. “Our primary concern is to make sure that there will be no inconvenience in the transfer of services for our customers. We will communicate with them to explain how the changes will take place in the coming weeks,” says Marchbank. Virgin Mobile Telecoms Ltd.SingTel