Optus has officially confirmed its intent to sacrifice Virgin Mobile, confirming rumours that first surfaced last month. Australia’s second-largest telco will be phasing out the Virgin Mobile Australia subsidiary over the next two years, ending 18 years of co-ownership.
The move will see Optus closing 36 Virgin Mobile stores and cutting 200 jobs associated with the Virgin brand. It is as yet unclear whether the staff will be reassigned to Optus stores.
Customers currently with Virgin Mobile will be moved over to Optus, but for those who don’t want to be an Optus customer, now's probably a good time to start looking for a new mobile provider — and there's now far more choice when it comes to mobile services in Australia than when Virgin first launched Down Under.
"Virgin Mobile customers can continue to use their service in the same way they always have. We will be contacting them in the coming days to let them know more about the changes and their future options," Optus said in a statement.
