Vodafone Ireland this morning said that 54pc of billpay phones sold on its network are smartphones. In its year end results the company said ARPU fell 10.5pc while mobile broadband subscribers grew 30pc.
Vodafone Ireland said that it invested €60m in its network during the year and plans to increase this investment as part of a plan to upgrade its entire national network to handle more demands for data.
The company also invested €100m in IT infrastructure which it says puts it ahead of the curve.
The company plans to invest 20pc more in its network and IT infrastructure in the coming year.
Service revenues at the largest mobile operator in the country were €245m, down 6.2pc on last year. Average blended ARPU fell to €32.30, down 10.5pc year-on-year.
54pc of Vodafone billpay customers opt for smartphones
Vodafone Ireland’s mobile customer base grew 3.2pc driven by the company’s Vodafone Home of the Smartphone strategy. There are now 2.2m Vodafone customers in Ireland.
Some 54pc of billpay devices sold on the network since December were smartphones.
Vodafone saw a 30pc year-on-year increase in mobile broadband customers with over 40,000 net additions during the year.
Minutes of use per customer grew 1.8pc year-on-year to 262 minutes, above the European average of 168 minutes.
Text messages remain a preferred option of communication among Irish subscribers with Irish people sending 221 messages per customer, versus the European average of 108. Some 5.6bn text messages were sent by Vodafone Ireland user, up 10.8pc year-on-year.
The company said that price reductions of 15pc per customer were achieved across the board.
Vodafone Group plans to up smartphone ante
Vodafone Group reported service revenues of stg£45.9bn, up 2.1pc on the previous year, driven by a strong performance in the Americas and Asia Pacific.
The Group plans to raise stg£14.2bn by an agreed disposal of its stakes in China Mobile, SoftBank and SFR.
“The past year has seen further strong performances in our key revenue growth areas of data, emerging markets and enterprise, and we have gained or held market share in most of our key markets,” Vittorio Colao, Group chief executive, explained.
“Continuing network investment is an important differentiator for Vodafone, improving the customer experience and giving us leadership in smartphone penetration and in customer take up of data plans. We enter the new financial year well positioned to deliver further value to our shareholders.”
