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.”
