Vodafone Ireland has signed 25,000 new customers in the three months ending 30 June, bringing to 61,000 new customers the company has acquired in the past year.
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According to the mobile operator’s latest quarterly figures, average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance indicator in the mobile business, for pre-pay grew from €308 a year ago to €345. Amongst post-pay users, the yearly ARPU increased to €1,098 from €1,067 last year. Blended ARPU was €565, up from €523 a year ago, the company said. Voice and data usage levels in Ireland exceeded average levels across the Vodafone Group’s European operations.
At the same time as the figures were unveiled, Vodafone said that it intends to deploy a network of WLAN hotspots at key locations around Ireland later this year to coincide with the launch of its Mobile Office release 2 suite of voice and data services for the corporate market. The company plans to deliver speeds of 500kbps in hotels, golf clubs, sports grounds and railway stations.
Vodafone Ireland’s strategy director Gerry Fahy commented: “The growth in ARPU reflects increased usage of MMS, ringtones and other data services by our customers.”
He continued: “In the period from April to end-June, we were the first Irish operator to open a 3G network. We introduced a compelling series of data propositions to our business customers under our Mobile Office suite of service and we also began a series of Business Partnership programmes with HP Centres of Excellence and Cisco Systems Integrators.
“The coming six months will be equally vibrant and we look forward to the opportunity of Full Mobile Number Portability (FMNP),” Fahy said.
Vodafone spent €10m on its FMNP roll-out.
Fahy added that in the next six months Vodafone would introduce an all-island tariff, new mobile office offerings and weekend promotional rates.
By John Kennedy
