Virgin Mobile to engage French phone users

Virgin Mobile boss Richard Branson has joined forces with retailer Carphone Warehouse in a bid to shake up the French mobile phone market.

The new offering will run off the phone network of Orange and offer the same rates for pre-pay customers as contract holders.

It hopes to become France’s fourth biggest operator, with a target of one million customers within three years.

Branson predicted the business would open up competition in a market that he said had previously been driven by enforced loyalty to one operator and offered different prices for customers.

He added: “In France, the existing operators defend their interests and consumers have lost confidence in them. We want to offer an alternative – an operator that doesn’t work against its customers, but with them.”

Today’s launch marked the start of what is expected to a significant week for the operator, as the FTSE 250 Index company is expected to announce it has agreed the terms of a £961m (€1.4bn) takeover by NTL.

The cable group wants to create a communications giant offering a range of services to about nine million customers under the Virgin brand. Virgin Mobile is a “virtual operator” using the network of T-Mobile in the UK, while it also operates in Australia, the United States and Canada.