Sprint’s Virgin Mobile prepaid brand is shifting its headquarters closer to Sprint’s home base in Kansas City and hiring new talent ahead of a relaunch of the brand.
According to Virgin Mobile CEO Dow Draper, the company, which is currently located in Warren, New Jersey, is making the move to help it attract better talent to fill 50 open positions by the end of the year. Construction of the new office is expected to be complete by the end of 2016, Sprint said.
“Kansas City has an emphasis on entrepreneurship and technology, especially in the downtown and crossroads areas, which fits exactly with the direction for the new Virgin Mobile,” said Dow Draper, Virgin Mobile USA CEO. “It is a vibrant place to live and work, giving us the ability to attract a world-class team with experience across multiple industries to become part of the global Virgin family.”
Open positions at Virgin Mobile include roles ranging from career professional to executive, primarily in the areas of marketing, customer experience delivery, and website design and management, Sprint said.
The changes come as Sprint looks to revamp its prepaid brand in the wake of massive success from AT&T’s Cricket and T-Mobile’s MetroPCS.
While Sprint lost 264,000 prepaid users in the last quarter, AT&T added 500,000 prepaid subscribers via Cricket and GoPhone and T-Mobile raked in a record 807,000 prepaid net additions through its MetroPCS brand.
Sprint hasn’t yet given any details of what the Virgin Mobile makeover will entail, but said the changes will “challenge the status quo by providing services beyond just talk, text and data access” and “launch groundbreaking, best-in-class services.”
Sprint said more details about the brand transformation will be released in the coming months.