Boost Mobile Plans Opening 50 Stores

Boost Mobile is reported to plan extending its business even more, based on the success its $50 unlimited plan had with the mobile phone users in the US, and intends to open some 50 new retail outlets during the ongoing year, at least this is what the company's Chief, Matt Carter, seems to have recently stated.

As many of you might already know, the company was a big surprise for the wireless market during the first quarter of 2009, and it managed to add more than 764,000 new pre-paid customers in only eight weeks that followed the launch of its $50 unlimited plan. To make a comparison, during the fourth quarter of the last year, the company lost 314,000 pre-paid customers.

According to Dow Jones, cited by WSJ, Boost has great chances of adding more than one million subscribers during the second quarter of the year, in case it manages to keep the momentum, and, this way, it will be able to rival the growth of the country's two dominant operators, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which managed to add 1.3 million and 1.2 million subscribers, respectively, during the first three months of the year.

It is rather uncertain at the moment what the implications of the pre-paid subscribers on Sprint's profit margins will be, for pre-paid customers cannot be considered as valuable to the company as the post-paid ones. Even so, pre-paid services represent one of the growing segments of the industry.

The new stores that the company intends to open during 2009 will raise the number of its outlets to 53. Matt Carter is reported to have said to Reuters that, “What’s important to us is street visibility. We think it’s going to help us quite a lot.” At the same time, it looks like Carter is concerned about a possible price war, which could drive the currently existing $50 unlimited plans, available with MetroPCs and Leap as well, to lower levels. According to Carter, Boost is not ready to cut prices, though its competitors might do so.