The struggling U.S. economy continues to plague Virgin Mobile USA. The prepaid MVNO lost 111,273 customers in the second quarter for a total customer base of 4.99 million, that's down from 5.1 million at the end of first quarter. The company's net income was also down. In the second quarter it earned $3.5 million, down from $7.1 million in the same period in the previous year. Revenue was down to $317.4 million from 327.6 million. Here are the other key metrics:
CPGA: Cost per gross add was $113.38 up from $100.03 in second quarter 2007. The higher CPGA was related to more marketing and distribution costs. Specifically, Virgin said it had higher retail commissions due to the popularity of the Wild Card handset and the Slash phone.
ARPU: Average revenue per user was $19.32, down from $20.97 in second quarter 2007. The company expects ARPU to improve in the second half of the year as more high-value hybrid customers join the ranks and adoption of the company's "Totally Unlimited" plan for $79.99 increases. Anecdotally, Virgin Mobile CEO Dan Schulman said the Totally Unlimited plan was drawing more interest than expected from customers.
Churn: Churn for the quarter was 5.6 percent, below company estimates and better than the 5.7 percent churn in second quarter 2007.
For more:
- see this press release
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