Boston Communications Group Inc. said it has received notice that Verizon Wireless will move forward with a national launch of an internal prepaid platform, rather than keeping its customers on BCGI’s platform.
Verizon said it will immediately begin activating new subscribers on the internal system. Meanwhile, the carrier will manually convert its existing subscriber base from BCGI’s platform onto its own. While the exact schedule for the conversion has not been finalized, the process is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2005.
BCGI was notified last July that Verizon planned to test and implement an internal prepaid platform. “Given our historic customer concentration, as well as the July notification by Verizon Wireless of its intentions to test an internal platform, we have continued to aggressively pursue a long-term growth and diversification strategy to help mitigate these risks and establish a solid foundation for BCGI’s continuing growth and profitability,” said E.Y. Snowden, president and chief executive officer of BCGI.
BCGI also said the news will not impact its second-quarter earnings expectation of 23 cents to 25 cents per share. The company plans to offer further guidance in its earnings call July 20.
The news follows Verizon Wireless’ Thursday launch of its new Pay As You Go prepaid service bundle, which includes a Kyocera Corp. KX414 handset and flat-rate pricing of 10 cents per minute with a 25-cent-per-call connection fee.
