Virgin Mobile eyes Malaysia's mobile market

Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) has launched its operations in Malaysia under the "FRiENDi mobile" brand.The FRiENDi mobile brand is the international brand of the VMMEA Group, with a focus on multi-cultural customers in Malaysia who are looking for a better mobile service to stay in touch with friends and loved ones, locally and globally.VMMEA is a an associate company of the UK-based Virgin Group, led by Richard Branson.According to FRiENDi mobile Malaysia's chief executive officer Jonathan Marchbank, there is room for more basic voice and messaging services."We studied the Malaysian market for 18 months and we found that customers in Malaysia are frustrated with the mobile rates being seen as confusing and expensive, that the current market practice of charging either per minute or per 30 seconds is leading to unfairly higher costs for the customers and the validity of prepaid cards is perceived as being much too short," he said.VMMEA aims to offer a mobile service with more transparent prices, fairer rules for usage plus a better quality customer service.It has support from a wide distribution network with 1,500 dealers across the Peninsula as well as Eastern Malaysia. FRiENDi mobile Malaysia is owned by VMMEA and its Malaysian partner, the Selangor state investment fund, Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor (KPS).Malaysia is VMMEA's fifth operation in the region, together with the existing operations in Oman, Jordan, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.