Your choices for prepaid mobile in Australia just got a little narrower. Red Bull Mobile is no longer signing up new customers and will have exited the market altogether within a year.
“As of 1st July 2013, new customers will no longer be able to purchase pre-paid or post-paid tariff plans from Red Bull MOBILE,” a notice on the company’s site reads. Existing prepaid vouchers need to be activated within 90 days of purchase.
While Red Bull Mobile, which utilised Vodafone’s network, was never a highly visible player after its launch in September 2011, it attracted some attention with its 365-day plans, which offered unlimited calls and 5GB of data a month for $365. Those weren’t noticeably better value than some month-by-month rivals, but the idea of paying once and forgetting appealed to some customers (and parents). The existence of those plans means the service potentially won’t be able to fully wind down until around July 2014.
Red Bull Mobile’s other major selling point was unmetered access to Red Bull video content and tickets to Red Bull-sponsored ‘experiences’. It also experimented with selling through EB Games outlets.
Red Bull’s departure from the market means that Vodafone no longer has any significant MVNO partners that we can think of, with Crazy John’s having shut down earlier this year. Update: Fat Duck Tech points out to me that Just Mobile also use Vodafone.
That means the MVNO space is more dominated than ever by brands licensing the Optus network (Virgin, Amaysim, TPG, iiNet, Vaya, Live Connected) though we have seen three notable launches for services based on Telstra’s older 3G network in the last year: Kogan, Boost Mobile and ALDI Mobile. Thanks Warren for the pointer!
Comments
4 responses to “Red Bull Mobile Australia Is Shutting Down”
That is a shame.
In my mind they were noticeably better than the competition. Firstly, they were offering an unlimited plan way before the likes of Aldi and Kogan – and on top of that they had a buy a phone for a dollar offer, and more recently, buy 12 months, get 3 months free.
I was planning on switching to them in August, but now that’s scuppered.
There is still lebara at $29.90 for unlimited calls and txt plus 3GB on vodafone’s network, but it seems vodafone are showing all there MVNO’s the door
This is a real shame. They were a good deal and a great idea. Paying $365 in advance for 15 months of access was great value and made budgeting very easy. You didn’t have worry about any extra charges or spend any time reloading credit for a whole year!
It seems like Vodafone is killing off its MVNO’s and Optus seems to be hitting them hard with higher wholesale rates. Perhaps the MVNO heyday is over? I am worried that the Australian consumer will end up paying more because of these changes.
I’m still with the 365 plan for another few months, and I’ve been very happy with them. Support was also excellent. (Unlike the web page they directed you to to read about it – clearly written by a three year old with secrecy issues.)
It is indeed a real shame, I’ve had to privilege of using their service for 3 years. The final year I was able to buy the 365 days prepaid (which was better than any of its competition) for only $265.
Red bull was easily the smartest buy, I haven’t had a mobile plan since mine got shut down. Because everything is a real ripp off, anyone who buys plans are idiots. Pre-Paid is always the way to go.