Virgin's Branson launches new Australian mobile phone company

Only months after shaking up Australia's aviation industry by launching the cut-price airline Virgin Blue, Branson said he was ready to take on the competitive telecommunications sector with a more flexible and simple mobile service.

Virgin Mobile, an equal joint venture with Cable and Wireless Optus Ltd. in which each company has promised to chip in Australian dollars 100 million (U.S. dlrs 510,000), was the beginning of a pan-Asian launch, Branson said.

Virgin Mobile's springboard into Asia will begin in Singapore, where Virgin has signed a deal with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, he said. "Riding on the back of the success of Virgin Blue we thought we would try and shake up another marketplace," Branson told reporters.

"Here in Australia we felt the mobile phone market was ripe for the picking." Virgin Mobile managing director Andrew Grant said the company expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to break even in three years.

He said Virgin Mobile expected to attract 5 million new mobile customers in five years, while also attracting 35 per cent of customers currently served by other Australian mobile phone companies.

To make the announcement, Branson arrived at a function in Sydney dangling from a helicopter dressed in a red combat uniform.

(AP)