Available for Virgin Media customers, you can call normal numbers using the same unlimited minutes that are included in your Virgin Phone talk plan. This comes into its’ own when you’re on holiday or working abroad and want to call home – just use the hotel WiFi to call home.
The news today is that the app is doing rather well indeed, with 670,000 WiFi calls made. This works out at 3 million minutes of calls on the phone. Virgin Media reckons that this works out at a massive £1.2 million saved on calls that would’ve been made through mobile minutes or expensive roaming calls. There’s also the fact that 08 numbers can be dialled through this system, so you save that way too.
There’s some pretty interesting numbers on the download stats too. Some 45% of users have an iPhone, whilst 37% of users have it running on a Samsung. Oooff.. that leaves a mere 18% gap where, we assume, handsets from HTC, Moto, LG, Huawei and others are crammed in.
Full press details below. If you’ve got a Windows Phone, here’s a picture for you instead because it’s not available as a download for you.
Three million minutes of WiFi calls saves customers £1,200,000
Smartphone users have so far saved more than £1.2 million by using Virgin Media SmartCall in just six months.
The service, which allows people to use their inclusive Virgin Media home phone minutes anywhere in the world with WiFi, has been used to make over three million minutes of free calls since its launch in October 2013. This is the equivalent of over five and a half years of constant conversation.
A total of 670,000 calls have been made from across the globe, including Australia and America. The average SmartCall is also 80% longer than a standard mobile phone call at four and a half minutes. iPhone owners have adopted the service in the largest numbers, making up 45% of SmartCall users, followed by Samsung users at 37%.
SmartCall can be used by anyone regardless of their mobile operator as long as they have a Virgin Media home phone. Households can save hundreds of pounds every year, slashing the costs of calling from overseas as well as calls to 08 numbers.
The latest statistics from Virgin Media show that one in every ten home phone calls made by SmartCall users is a SmartCall.
Joe Lathan, director of broadband and home phone at Virgin Media, said. “It’s great to see SmartCall liberate customers’ landlines and save people money. Whether it is a parent making a SmartCall home when working abroad or the kids using WiFi to save their pre-pay minutes, using our free app is a smart call. This gives Virgin Media customers another way to harness the power of their superfast broadband when at home and take the value of their landline with them wherever they go in the world.”
The three million minutes dialled up on Virgin Media SmartCall is equivalent to:
· Usain Bolt running his world record breaking 100m 18,789,144 times
· Watching all five series of Breaking Bad 1,027 times
· Seeing all 64 matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup 520 times
· Streaming all six Star Wars films over 3,764 times back-to-back.
· Downloading 855,000 HD movies on Virgin Media’s 152Mb superfast broadband
In October last year Virgin launched Smartcall. The app, which you can download for iPhone or Android handsets let’s you use your home Virgin Phone talk plan on your smartphone. It’s effectively the home phone you can take anywhere and works on pretty much any WiFi hotspot you care to hook onto.