Kajeet, the pay-as-you-go operator targeted specifically at tweens, announced that it had inked a partnership with Amazon.com to sell its phones on the website, and had also been included in Amazon's 2008 Holiday Toy List.
The MVNO, which has been in the commercial marketplace for about a year and a half, offers pay-as-you-go plans and a small portfolio of phones, primarily aimed at kids between ages 8 and 15. The company has no contracts, no activation fees or termination fees. Rate plans range in price from $4.99 per month to $30 per month. The service is run on Sprint Nextel's network, and has the same digital footprint as Sprint's service.
The company has found a niche catering specifically to kids and moms who want to have more direct control over how their children use phones before they enter into contract-based wireless service, Kajeet CEO Daniel Neal said in an interview with FierceWireless last week. He did not say how many customers the company had.
Kids "do not want to carry a device that says 'I'm a kid.' The truth is they all want an iPhone. The problem is that an iPhone is very expensive. Every 10-year-old boy wants a Ferrari, too," Neal said.
Kajeet's phones range in price from $30 to $160, and Neal said the LG rumor is one of the most popular phones. Neal also said that because parents can change options on the phone easily--all changes can be done online through a secure server--they can have a greater deal of control without having to deal with the handset directly.
Neal said as more powerful phones enter the market, and that trend trickles down to a younger generation of phone users, the need for companies like Kajeet is bound to increase.
"For a company like ours, it's all about discipline and focus. It's tempting to take our platform and modify it for some other use," he said. "We're decidedly a company focused on a large, homogeneous niche. We don't need a lot of the market to be successful. In our world, the goliaths are gargantuan. For us, it's not so much about trying lots of new things but staying true to what we're best at."
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Links:
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/kajeet-cell-phone-service-kids-now-available-amazon-com
[2] http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/kajeet-inks-mobile-im-deal-comverse/2007-08-28
[3] http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/kajeet-draws-up-content-deal-with-cartoon-network/2008-05-20