Helio Store Spotted in Santa Monica, CA
September 19th, 2006 11:05 PM | by Christen da Costa | 1 Comment
Although the announcement of the Helio brick and mortar stores were announced some time ago, I didn’t realize they were actually coming to fruition. The other day I was in Santa Monica on 3rd Street and spotted the above.
[...] No doubt you’ve heard the rumors about Helio: “Its biggest backer – SK Telecom – was pulling out, and that Helio wasn’t making any money.” According to Business Week Helio has reported earning about $100 a month per user – on par with other MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators). Unfortunately, we don’t know how many users Helio has, but given that Cingular and Verizon report average revenue per user to be $50 a month, we’d say their in a pretty good position to rake in some cash. Course you gotta factor in the fact that Helio is still an MVNO; meaning they have to pay some hefty fees to Sprint or Verizon for use of their “lines”. I’ll have to get down to 3rd St here in Santa Monica and see if they opened up their store yet. [...]