If you are planning on purchasing a new iPhone at Virgin Mobile this holiday shopping season, you are all but out of luck. While it somehow still sells the over three-year-old iPhone 4s, the prepaid carrier has not added the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus to its smartphone lineup and lists last year’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models as out of stock.
Virgin Mobile claims that both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are “temporarily out of stock,” although neither smartphone has been available through its website for quite some time. Meanwhile, Sprint sister company Boost Mobile carries the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 4s with no contract required in the United States.
Virgin Mobile is a prepaid subsidiary of Sprint, offering customers affordable monthly plans with no contract required. In return for cheaper monthly plans, the carrier charges much closer to full retail price up front for most of its smartphones compared to the subsidized prices that carriers like AT&T and Verizon offer based on a two-year contract.
It should be noted that while Virgin Mobile also exists as a prepaid carrier in other countries like Australia, Canada, France and the United Kingdom, each operates as an independent entity. In other words, this is why Virgin Mobile Canada, a subsidiary of Bell, does carry the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, while the Sprint-owned carrier does not.
Update: Virgin Mobile USA confirmed that “at this time, there are no plans to” carry the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. “We can only comment on device announcements that have been made to date,” a spokesperson added, when asked if iPhones were on the way out at the carrier. “Roadmaps on our prepaid brands are always evolving.”
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Their service sucks. When Sandy hit us two years ago, it was almost 10 days before I got my service back—my friends on the Big Four got theirs back in two days! If you have a Sprint-compatible phone, they won’t take it, wtf?
I paid upfront for my iPhone so I can use it on AT&T’s prepaid GoPhone for 10¢/minute. I don’t pay for data and only pay for texts on occasion (all data is supplied through wifi). I’d be on T-Mobile if their service wasn’t so spotty–I love that they have data packages for occasional use.
Ugh, we have been trying to upgrade our 4S on Virgin for months and have been going to the website daily in hopes they get some in stock. I’m not sure what the deal is. I’ve tried calling multiple times but no answers. Service for us in the Mid West has been good, and we love the $30/month price for having an iPhone through them. We will continue to wait and hope they become available during the Black Friday – Cyber Monday timelines…
THEY ARE AT RADIOSHACK! But there is a catch! Read the following below.
I like many of you checked virgin’s stupid website daily and asked in chat, but nobody ever got back to me with a real response! Finally I found out RadioShack has the phones, but wait you can’t order online! OR so they want you to think! Here is the method I used which worked (order confirmed received email – awaiting arrival of the phone) On your iPhone or mobile device go to Google.com then search “Iphone 5 Radioshack” then click the radioshack page with the phone and select your color. It will say “Only Available In Stores”, but the trick is to type in a fake zip code like 68143 or something as such. Then it will say “Add to Cart” all you have to do is simply add the phone to cart and checkout normally. The struggle is over! YOU ARE WELCOME. NOW PRAISE ME.
I recently did that and my order got cancelled due to availability .
The phones were actually were around for the holidays, just not on virgin mobile’s website. We purchased one at our local Radio Shack without any issues, because the Iphone for Virgin has a sim card that can work with either Sprint, Boost, or Virgin.
This is fantastic .. do you know if I have to do anything to set it up differently or can I just purchase it from Boost/Sprint and activate on my Virgin account?
Unfortunately, no Radio Shack stores within 100 miles of me have iPhones in stock or available. Add to that the fact that Radio Shack is a dying business… I suppose we are out of luck.
“Virgin Mobile USA confirmed that “at this time, there are no plans to” carry the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. “We can only comment on device announcements that have been made to date,” a spokesperson added, when asked if iPhones were on the way out at the carrier. “Roadmaps on our prepaid brands are always evolving.”
OK, Um.. Let me see. If I were living in Australia (The country with Koala Bears, the Outback and Kangaroos), I would have been able to purchase the iPhone 6 from the 1st day of release, and it’s still being sold over there. But.. living here in the USA (Apple home headquarters resides and a country supposedly known for it’s cutting edge technology), I cannot get an iPhone 6 and will never be able to get an iPhone 6 from Virgin Mobile? Huh????
Um.. This really sucks Virgin Mobile. I’m not certain what kind of “roadmap” you are using, but you have many potential customers here that will be going somewhere else for their cellular coverage.
Virgin Mobile just started selling iPhone 6 and 6 Plus today! Go get them now people!