|
|
|
Vodafone Reveals Strong Aussie Growth |
|
|
|
Written by Adam Gosling
|
|
Wednesday, 31 May 2006 |
Against a backdrop of disastrous global financial results, Vodafone has moved to allay local fear by releasing very positive growth results in the Australian market.
According to the figures, the company’s Service Revenue grew by 11.8% year-on-year thanks, in part, to the addition of 51,000 customers for the three months ending March 31, 2006.
However speaking to The Australian newspaper Russell Hewitt, Chief Executive Officer at Vodafone Australia, confirmed the company's profit levels had been hit by capped plans without letting on how big the fall was.
In all the Vodafone Australia customer base grew by 16.3% over the comparative point in March 2005 which meant that by March 31, 2006 the company had 3.177 million direct customers plus an additional 338,000 indirect customers, bringing the total number connected to Vodafone to in excess of 3.5 million.
Perhaps the brightest point was the companys launch of its 3G network which seems to have taken off like a scolded cat. Vodafone reports that it has exceeded the targets set for the local operation.
While the local Vodafone management only own up to gaining "more than 100,000" 3G subscribers, the global fiscal results statement claims many more.
"Vodafone Australia increased its customer base by 16.0%, and local currency service revenue by 11.8% due to the popularity of its capped plans, which have resulted in a significant increase in outgoing voice usage, whilst adversely impacting outgoing voice revenue per minute and interconnect costs. 3G services were launched on 31 October 2005, with strong uptake resulting in 171,000 consumer 3G devices being registered on the network by 31 March 2006," it says in part.
Data revenues grew by 31% year-on-year, but while voice usage increased to 2,001million minutes in Q4 05/06 (an increase of 38.7%) the company wasn’t specific about how cost caps have affected revenues from this part of its operations.
It did say that Prepay ARPU increased by 26% and attributed a slight fall in Postpay ARPU to customer migration and mix.
Hewitt said in a company statement that the company is achieving strong revenue growth while stabilising ARPU.
“We’ve worked hard to get the business on very solid footing. We’re now activating the next phase of our commercial strategy, which leverages demand in the market for high-value contracts and the development of new 3G infotainment and mobile broadband revenue streams,” he said.
Meanwhile, back at corporate, the company was revealing its strategy to pull itself out of the doldrums that resulted in a mega-billion pound loss for the year.
While most of that action is likely to take place overseas, the affect locally could see some significant in the company’s approach to the market.
Vodafone’s strategy is to re-invigorate its customer ARPU by moving to deliver what it is calling “Mobile Plus”.
The company plans to extend its offering to include provision of DSL services and to drive services usage by providing tighter integration between phone, the PC and Internet. A third area of focus seeks to introduce new advertising based services and business models.
Vodafone Germany is first off the mark, already announcing the introduction of a bundled DSL offering by a third party.
Related news items Newer news items
Older news items |
|
|
