Nextel Communications reported one million subscribers for its Boost Mobile prepaid subsidiary at the end of November 2004. The company had expected to add 650,000 new subscribers in 2004, up from 385,000 in 2003. (Source: Reuters)
This is quite interesting. Boost Mobile is one of the pre-paid companies, but their rates are actually quite reasonable and you can see on their site they explicitly market to teenagers - the white middle-class boys actually. The first thing that comes up when you click "rates" is the rate for text messaging and not calling. This is an indicator both of their target audience and the types of services they sell most. This is very similar to providers in the UK much more so than in the US. The fact that Boost has only existed for a year and is exceeding expectations in terms of subscribers is also similar to what Vodafone and T-Mobile experienced in Europe nearly a decade ago. It could be that it was indeed the payment structure and the kind of perception of the consumers that wireless companies had here and geography of the country and it's habits, that created such a huge difference in patterns of mobile services consumption.
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