Virgin Mobile launches MVNO in Poland, eyes other Central Europe markets

Billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile entered the Polish market with the launch of a new prepaid service.

The new MVNO service will use network infrastructure from rivals Orange and Play, and is looking to recruit around one million customers within three years.

"Virgin Mobile Central and Eastern Europe is a new regional company in the Virgin group," Kristian Myrup, the unit's head, told the Dow Jones Newswires. "We are looking into expanding our business into Poland obviously, but also potentially to Turkey, Russia, Hungary and others."

However, Virgin Mobile Poland is entering a saturated market with more than 52 million active SIM cards in a country with a population of around 38 million, according to Poland's statistics office.

The company will have the support of a Polish minority shareholder Dirlango, a venture owned by Lukasz Wejchert, a former executive of Polish television broadcaster TVN and a former shareholder in TVN's owner, ITI Group, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

For more:
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article

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