There are now 530,000 smartphones on the Irish network, Vodafone Ireland says. The news comes as Vodafone Group’s first quarter revealed a 3.5pc year-on-year increase in revenues which came in at stg£11.6bn.
The results, which were better than expected, came from strong service revenue growth in developing markets and a 24.5pc surge in group data revenues.
In Europe, smartphone penetration is now standing at 19.5pc.
CEO Vittorio Calao commented: “We have made a good start to the year, reporting robust results despite challenging macroeconomic conditions across southern European economies and the impact of cuts to mobile termination rates.
“Revenue from our key focus areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets continues to grow strongly. With our broad geographical mix and improving market positions, we are well placed for the rest of the financial year.”
In Ireland, the company said its total telecoms base has grown by 76,000 new customers to hit 2.4m.
The company cited its ‘Home of the Smartphone’ strategy as being pivotal to sustained growth in its smartphone base, which now consists of 530,000 users.
Both minutes of use per customer grew 1.9pc quarter-on-quarter to 267 minutes while total voice calls grew 4.6pc over the same period last year.
Vodafone Ireland customers sent 15pc more messages in the quarter ended 30 June compared to the same period last year and benchmark much higher than the European average, with 224 messages sent per customer versus 109.
A total of 1.49m texts were sent by Vodafone Ireland customers in the quarter. ARPU increased slightly to 32.90, up 1.9pc on the previous quarter, due to increased data usage, but showed a 6.3pc decrease on the same period last year.
Broadband and cloud computing
Vodafone expanded its focus on cloud computing services with the launch of Microsoft Office 365 on its fixed and mobile voice and data products in the quarter.
The company also launched Shared Mobile Broadband for Business, a new business package that allows data to be shared by all employees within a single plan.
Vodafone said its broadband business continued to perform well in the quarter, with 7,900 net customer additions bringing its total broadband subscriber base to 366,600 at 30 June.
