Bell Canada Buys Remaining 50% Of Virgin Mobile… Keeps Virgin Name…
Bell Canada announced that it is buying the 50% of Virgin Mobile that it didn’t already own and it bought the rights to keep using the Virgin name. Why would they do this? I’ll let George Cope (Bell CEO) explain:
“We think it maximizes the flexibility of our flanker brand strategy,” Bell CEO George Cope told analysts during a conference call this morning.
He noted that the decision to buyout Virgin comes as Bell is facing the prospect of more competition in the key wireless sector from new players who purchased wireless airwaves in last year’s federal spectrum auction.
He also said that Bell, which also sells wireless services through its discount Solo brand, will now operate two sub-brands, but hinted it may consolidate them in the future.
Good luck with that Bell. I really think that Globalive Wireless is going to steal a lot of customers from Bell, Telus, and Rogers regardless of what they do. That’s because consumers are fed up what those three brands have to offer and they want an alternative. But we’ll see soon enough.
May 8, 2009 at 2:22 am
Did you catch the announcement about Telus TV? Yep, Telus is going to do satellite, sort of. They are getting Telus branded boxes and service from…..Bell. If your box has a Telus serial number you will get the Telus programming guide, etc.