Aiming to strengthen its youth-centric services, Virgin Mobile India, today announced a partnership with Myspace to make the latter’s social networking services available on Virgin Mobile WAP-enabled phones.

Under the partnership deal, Virgin Mobile users can access Myspace on their WAP-enabled mobile handsets, which are priced as low as Rs 2,999, for free, claims the company - somewhat dubiously. Users can access Myspace by simply clicking the Myspace link on Vbytes, (Virgin Mobile’s data portal) and log in their user ID and password. New users can begin by creating a fresh ID and password. However, users will need to pay a daily charge of Rs 5 for accessing Vbytes.

Bindu Nair, from Virgin Mobile India, explained to the Examiner why the Myspace service can be described as free, even though users will be charged for accessing Vbytes. "We are not charging any subscription fee for accessing Myspace, Rs 5 is being charged for data portal access," he insisted.

Apart from enjoying connectivity to the social networking site, Virgin Mobile users can also send and receive messages, read and post blogs online, browse photos and albums, update their mood status in real time with just one click, meet singles, match-make amongst friends, keep in touch with family members through Family Tree, network with business contacts and lastly, locate their lost classmates and friends.

Commenting on the partnership, Deval Parikh, chief officer for handsets and VAS with Virgin Mobile India, said, "With more and more online youth community logging onto social networking sites, we wanted to make this service available to our customers on a broad set of handsets. We are thrilled to be the first to have partnered with MySpace in the Indian mobile service space to make this service accessible to Virgin Mobile customers on handsets as low as Rs 2,999."

"With India being the fastest growing wireless/mobile market, it is a priority for us to provide our users in India access to their Myspace network in ways that fit their lifestyle. Virgin Mobile is an ideal partner that will help us deliver on that strategy in India," said John Faith, vice president and general manager of mobile for Myspace.

Vkewl and Vsleek are two WAP-enabled handsets from Virgin Mobile’s product portfolio. The former is priced in the range of Rs 3,499 and the latter is priced at Rs 2,999. Both come with a lifetime incoming validity and a prepaid connection. X