Vodafone Ireland invests €120m in network upgrade

22 May 2012

Vodafone’s Irish operations invested €120m in the last year on developing its network, the largest investment by any network operator in Ireland this year.

The company said its network was measured to be the fastest by Metrico, when compared with other mobile operators across 55 test locations in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Cork and Galway.

Average blended monthly ARPU fell 3.4pc to €31.20 for the quarter ended 31 March.

The company said the number of smartphones on its network were up 59pc year on year.

Some 37.7pc of its mobile customers now carry smartphones.

Its total customer base at the end of March was 2.46m subscriptions, of which 2.2m were mobile subscribers. Its total customer base grew 1.7pc year on year.

The company said it had more than 1.05m mobile internet subscribers, up 14pc on last year.

During the quarter, Vodafone launched its HD Voice service and launched its Vodafone One Net unified comms solution for businesses.

Vodafone added that fixed-line and DSL customer numbers increased 10.3pc year on year to 239,600.

Smartphone penetration in Europe

Globally, Vodafone Group said revenues rose 1.4pc to stg£46.4bn for the year ended 31 March.

CEO Vittorio Calao said the company had free cash flow of stg£6.1bn after capital expenditure of stg£6.4bn.

He said smartphone penetration in Europe was now 26.9pc, up 8.3pc year-on-year.

“Our focus on the key growth areas of data, emerging markets and enterprise is positioning us well in a difficult macroeconomic environment. Our commercial performance and our ability to leverage scale continue to be strong, enabling us to gain or hold market share in most of our key markets, and reduce the rate of margin decline.

“Our robust cash generation and the dividend received from Verizon Wireless have enabled us to translate this operational success into good returns for shareholders.

“Our goal over the next three years is to continue to strengthen our technology and commercial platforms through reliable and secure high-speed data networks, significantly enhanced customer service across all channels, and improved data pricing models, to enrich customers’ experience and maximise our share of value in the markets in which we operate,” Calao said.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com