Sprint Prepaid Wireless Multi-Brand Strategy!Are you interested in learning about the Sprint prepaid wireless strategy? Sprint has made some tremendous investments in the no contract wireless space in 2009 and 2010. On May 6th 2010, less than a year after it acquired Virgin Mobile USA, Sprint announced its multi-brand prepaid strategy. If you haven't yet read the discussion about its brand strategy options, you can catch up by heading over to Sprint Acquires Virgin Mobile, and even share your own thoughts. Some of the pieces of the options explored ended up being a part of the Sprint prepaid wireless strategy, however, admitedly, I missed the mark when it comes to how they ultimately ended up approaching the prepaid market with their brand portfolio approach!  It just goes to show you that the prepaid wireless industry is just so dynamic and complex; I think that's why I love this industry so much! That's not to say that I personally agree with the approach they're taking. However, one thing that I have learned over the years working in prepaid is that there's always more than one way to be successful. And to the contrary, there's also more than one way to lead to failure as well ;-) (Of course I'm not at all saying that's where they're headed!). Anyway, let's take a look at the Sprint prepaid wireless strategy: Sprint's Multiple Prepaid Brands
How Are Sprint's Prepaid Wireless Brands Positioned?
Things to Note/Consider about the Sprint Prepaid Wireless Strategy:
My Two Cents About the Sprint Prepaid Wireless Brand! I strongly believe that Sprint leadership had a tremendously difficult time deciding how to manage their brands. Assurance Wireless is easy and largely lives on its own. Common Cents Mobile seems to be a good way to focus on the super low end of the market without diluting its unlimited programs, and having a clear message to target to value concisous customers.  Boost and Virgin seem to get a lot more complex. Each brand on its own has sufficient equity to not want to immediately get rid of one. And while Sprint management believes that they target different segments of the market, I have to believe that there is more overlap that they're willing to admit. So in the short term they differentiated the brands by having one focus on voice and text, while the other focusses on messaging, email, and data. HOWEVER, I believe in the long run, many of the strategies that I explored previously will still need to be considered. Ultimately iDEN will die. Whether it's in three years or ten years, it will happen. Even if the network remains for public safety and other government programs, it will become too expensive to develop appealing and cost effective handsets on iDEN. CDMA and 4G will need to be the focus (and perhaps LTE in the longer term). Anyway, the point/conclusion here is that Sprint still has a lot of thinking (and perhaps experimentation!) to do with how the handle the Virgin and Boost brands, and only time will tell. But one thing is for certain - things will not remain as they are; they never do! As the market, and the Sprint prepaid wireless brands evolve, I will continue to update the discussions on this site. No Contract Cell Phone Plans
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