Boost, Virgin Distribution Changes Due

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 5/17/2010

WARREN, N.J. — Distribution of Sprint’s Boost and Virgin Mobile prepaid brands will evolve under the carrier’s new four-brand prepaid strategy, a spokesperson told TWICE.

“You’ll begin to see more and more prepaid products in the Sprint stores,” she said. “Select Sprint stores carry Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile handsets, and that will increase.” Sprint “certainly expects our prepaid products to benefit from Sprint retail distribution as we begin to educate consumer that they can find prepaid products at Sprint as well,” she added.

Boost phones will continue to remain in independent and national retailers, which currently include Best Buy and RadioShack. Likewise, Virgin-branded handsets will continue to be distributed through major retailers and drug and convenience stores, but Virgin handsets will also be made available to Boost’s indirect retailers as well, she said.

Sprint also operates Boost-branded stores, some of which carry Virgin products, and the company plans to continue opening new Boost stores “with an eye toward locations that would also benefit from Virgin Mobile product,” the spokesperson continued. “We expect to see more merged product stores in the second half of the year, with some more Boost-dominant and others highlighting Virgin Mobile more,” she explained.

“We are going through an evolution of co-branding the stores, although in keeping with the multi-branded strategy, some stores may be more Boost Mobile-dominant, whereas some may be more Virgin Mobile-dominated.” That could vary by ZIP Code, she noted.