The content-led MVNO dream looks to be over, with Virgin US buying Helio.
The US telco acquired Helio for about $39 million from investors including SK Telecom and the entrepreneur Sky Dayton, who conceived the whole thing. Virgin will inherit Helio’s 170, 000 post-paid subscribers, but does not have plans to migrate them to the pre-paid model it has built its own business upon. Virgin currently has about five million pre-paid subscribers.Helio lasted longest of the youth-oriented content-focused MVNOs but couldn’t avoid the fate of its counterparts Amp’d Mobile, Disney Mobile and ESPN.
Although Helio had an attractive rump of 18-25 year old subs and above average ARPU, it never made money and was serially propped up by investor cash. Last September SK Telecom put in another $275 million.
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