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Public (, <br> , )
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1983 as '''Racal Telecom''', independent 1991
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''Make the most of now'' (in many countries, their previous slogan, ''How are you'', is still used)
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Newbury , England
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Ian MacLaurin, Lord MacLaurin Of Knebworth , Chairman (till July 2006)<BR> Paul Hazen , Deputy Chairman <br> Arun Sarin , Chief Executive<br> Sir Julian Horn-Smith , Deputy Chief Executive (retiring July 2006)<br> Frank Rovekamp , Chief Marketing Officer<br> Peter Bamford , Chief Marketing Officer (till April 2006)<br> Thomas Geitner , CEO New Businesses & Innovation<br> Sir Chris Gent , former chairman<br> Bill Morrow , CEO Europe<br> Paul Donovan , CEO Central Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Affiliates
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Mobile Telecommunications
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Vodafone Live! , Vodafone Mobile Connect , Vodafone WLAN , Vodafone Live! With 3G , Vodafone Simply , Vodafone Passport etc
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(, , ) is a
British Mobile Phone Operator headquartered in
Newbury, Berkshire ,
England , is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover, with equity interests in 26 countries and Partner Networks (networks in which it has no equity stake) in a further 33 countries. Its name stands for '''VO'''ice '''DA'''ta '''FONE''' (phone).
. The six markets where it has more than ten million proportionate customers are the
United Kingdom ;
Germany , the
United States ,
Italy ,
Spain (and until March 2006 in
Japan ). In the U.S., these customers come via its minority stake in
Verizon Wireless , and in the other five markets Vodafone has majority-controlled subsidiaries.
Vodafone's portfolio of global services, supported by its global brand, is available in a total of 59 countries. In a historic deal, on 17 March 2006 Vodafone Group announced an agreement to sell its ownership of Vodafone Japan (Vodafone K.K.) to
SoftBank . On April 14, 2006
SoftBank and
Vodafone K. K. jointly announced, that the brand and company name
Vodafone will be changed to a "new, easy-to-understand and familiar company name and brand". Masayoshi Son became CEO (Representative Director) of
Vodafone K. K.
Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in Europe. The proportionate customer numbers are for
31 December 2005 :
- , where the company remains today (but now in a custom-built HQ building).
- October 1991: Racal Telecom is demerged from Racal Electronics and becomes Vodafone Group.
- June 1992: Vodafone Germany 's (still as "Mannesmann Mobilfunk GmbH") network goes live.
- July 1992: Vodafone United Kingdom 's GSM network goes live.
- September 1992: Vodafone Sweden 's network goes live under the name of Europolitan who late changed name to Europolitan-Vodafone.
- October 1992: Vodafone Portugal 's (still as "Telecel, Comunicações Pessoais, SA") network goes live.
- July 1993: Vodafone Greece 's network (still as "Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications") goes live.
- July 1993: Vodafone Ireland 's GSM network goes live, as Eircell; a ETACS network had operated from ~ 1985 .
- September 1995: Vodafone Italy 's (still as "Omnitel") network goes live.
- November 1995: Vodafone Spain 's (still as "Airtel") network goes live.
- , known as the ''Speechmark'', as it is a Quotation Mark in a circle; the O's in the Vodafone logotype are opening and closing quotation marks, suggesting conversation. The logo often appears on the outline of a SIM card.
- , Inc. of the U.S., and changes its name to . As Airtouch owns about 30 percent of the German Mannesmann group, Vodafone is required to shed its 17 percent holding in Germany's third-largest mobile provider, E-Plus .
- Corp. to be called Verizon Wireless , which was composed of the two companies' U.S. wireless assets and began operations on 4 April 2000 .
- February - April 2000: After a months-long battle, Vodafone buys German conglomerate Mannesmann AG to get control over the mobile network operator Mannesmann Mobilfunk GmbH & Co KG, operating the "D2" network. The deal is one of the largest in European history and is Germany's first Hostile Takeover by a foreign firm. The conglomerate is subsequently broken up and all manufacturing related operations sold off.
- 28 July 2000 : Reverts to its former name, .
- 2001-04-16 First 3G voice call on Vodafone United Kingdom 's 3G network.
- 2001: Vodafone takes over ''Eircell'', then part of Eircom in Ireland , and rebrands it Vodafone Ireland .
- 2001-2002: Vodafone acquires Japan's third-largest mobile operator J-Phone, which had introduced camera phones first in Japan.
- Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involves the introduction of Vodafone international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone. The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets where it does not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone; Elisa-Vodafone; Bité-Vodafone etc.)
- .
- 2002: Vodafone rebrands Japan's J-sky mobile internet service as Vodafone Live! ™ as its mobile customer portal
- .
- . As a result, Vodafone adds Austria , Croatia , and Slovenia in its partner network.
- is introduced in the Icelandic market. The company is the result of the partnering of Og with Vodafone.
- , already Vodafone-Omnitel, is rebranded Vodafone Italy .
- .
- 's LuxGSM.
- of Cyprus. Cyta agreed to rename its mobile phone operations to Cytamobile-Vodafone.
- November 2004: Vodafone introduces 3G services into Europe.
- June 2005: Vodafone increases its participation in Romania's Connex to 99%. Vodafone also buys Czech mobile operator Oskar.
- 1 July 2005 : Oskar of Czech Republic is rebranded as Oskar-Vodafone.
- launches a revised logo, dropping the quotation marks in the O's of the company name (these reflect English usage, and are not always understood as representing speech in other languages), and using a 3D version of the quotation mark logo, but still retaining a red background and white writing (or vice versa). Also, various operating companies start to drop the use of the SIM card pattern in the company logo. (The rebranding of Oskar-Vodafone and Connex-Vodafone also does not use the Sim Card pattern.)
- in Romania is rebranded as Connex-Vodafone
- , the largest provider of telecommunications services in Norway, for approximately € 1 billion. The sale will be completed by the end of calendar year 2005. After the sale, Vodafone Sweden becomes a Partner Network.
- 's second-largest mobile phone company, Telsim , for $ 4.5 billion. {Link without Title}
- becomes the second member of the group to adopt the revised logo.
- to Telenor .
- , adopting the revised logo. Vodafone Hungary also adopts this logo.
- . Italian customers were particularly affectionated to Megan Gale, so it was very hard for the company to adopt new testimonials for advertising campaigns. Three models have been chosen and Vodafone Italy's claim was changed from "All around you" into "Life is NOW".
- with the signing of Partner Network Agreement with Mobiltel, whih is part of Mobilkom Austria group.
- 12 March 2006 : Former chief, Sir Christopher Gent, who was appointed the honorary post Chairman for Life in 2003, quits following rumours of boardroom rifts.
- also switches over to the new logo.
- announces that it will change name to Telenor Sverige AB following the Telenor takeover of the Swedish Vodafone-network.
- adopts the new logo.
- announces that it has signed an extension to its Partner Network Agreement with BITE Group, enabling its Latvian subsidiary "BITE Latvija" to become the latest member of Vodafone's global partner community.
- rebrands to Telenor and drops the Vodafone branding.
- , also adopting the new logo.
Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The proportionate customer numbers are at
31 December 2005 :
- July 1993: BellSouth New Zealand's network went live.
- October 1993: Vodafone Australia 's network went live.
- July 1994: Vodafone Fiji 's network went live.
- November 1998: Vodafone purchased BellSouth New Zealand, and it became known as Vodafone New Zealand .
- 1999-2000: J-Phone launched the J-sky mobile internet service in response to DoCoMo 's I-Mode service.
- December 2002: J-Phone's 3G network went live.
- 3 November 2003 : M1, as a Partner Network is added to the Vodafone footprint.
- to ' Vodafone ', and the name of J-Phone 's mobile internet service from J-Sky to Vodafone Live!
- April 2005: Smartone changed the name of its brand from Smartone to ' Smartone-Vodafone ' after the both company signed the Partner Network Agreement.
- August 2005: Vodafone launched 3G technology in New Zealand
- October 2005: Vodafone begins launching 3G technology in Australia
- , which operates the largest mobile phone network in India under the brand name AirTel . The acquisition involves two separate transactions.
- of India .
- , Malaysia , and Sri Lanka are added to the Vodafone footprint as Vodafone Group signs a partner network agreement with Telekom Malaysia .
- (Vodafone K.K.) to SoftBank for £8.9 billion of which £6.8 billion will be received in cash on closing of deal. The brand " Vodafone K.K. " is expected to change.
- officially adopts the group's new logo
- and Vodafone K. K. jointly announce that the company name and brand of Vodafone K. K. will be changed to a "new, easy-to-understand and familiar company name and brand". Masayoshi Son becomes CEO and representative director of Vodafone K. K.
Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the Middle East and Africa region. The proporationate customer numbers are as at
31 December 2005 .
- May 1998: Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name ClickGSM .
- . The agrrement involved the rebranding of MTC to MTC-Vodafone .
- .
- has agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone Live! and partner agreements, to its local market.
- Group, reaching agreement the following day. Vodafone announces it plans to purchase a controlling interest in VenFin, and then shed VenFin's other assets. Vodafone and Telkom will then have a 50% stake each in Vodacom .
- adopts the group's new logo.
Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the Americas region.
In the
United States , Vodafone owns 44.4%
1 of
Verizon Wireless , the country's second largest mobile carrier. Before this joint venture was formed, Vodafone merged with
AirTouch Communications of the U.S. in June 1999 and changed its name to Vodafone Airtouch Plc. In September 1999, Vodafone Airtouch announced a $70-billion joint venture with
Bell Atlantic Corp. The first wireless business with a national footprint in the U.S., Verizon Wireless was composed of Bell Atlantic's and Vodafone AirTouch's U.S. wireless assets and began operations on
April 4 2000 . However,
Verizon Communications —the company formed when Bell Atlantic and
GTE merged on
June 30 2000 —owns a majority of Verizon Wireless and Vodafone's branding is not used, nor is the network compatible with GSM phones. This relationship has been quite profitable for Vodafone, but there have historically been three problems with it. The first is the above-mentioned incompatibility with the GSM standard used by Vodafone's other networks, and the consequent difficulty of offering roaming between Vodafone's U.S. and other networks. The other two stem from the fact that Vodafone has does not have management control over Verizon Wireless. Vodafone is thus unable to use the Vodafone brand for its U.S. operations, and (perhaps more importantly) has no control of dividend policy at Verizon Wireless and is therefore entirely at the mercy of Verizon management with respect to cash flow from Verizon Wireless to Vodafone.
Perhaps as a consequence of these reasons, Vodafone made a bid for the entirety of
AT&T Wireless when that company was for sale in 2004. Had this bid been successful, Vodafone would presumably have sold its stake in Verizon Wireless, and then rebranded the resultant business as Vodafone. As AT&T Wireless used the GSM standard, this would have resolved all the above problems. However,
Cingular Wireless (a joint venture of SBC Communications (now
AT&T ) and
BellSouth ) ultimately outbid Vodafone and took control of AT&T Wireless, and Vodafone's relationship with Verizon has continued.
On
15 November 2005 , Vodafone Group announced a group-wide co-operation agreement with America Movil of Mexico. The agreement involves co-operation on international services and roaming. The services include Voice and GPRS Roaming services, Preferred Roaming and Virtual Home Environment. Included in the agreement are the 13 networks owned and controlled by America Movil (except Tracfone in the United States), and the various operating companies of Vodafone and its Partner Networks.
Although the announcement only says that the two groups are partnering to deliver international roaming services, subsequent press releases of the Vodafone Group indicates that it has 27 (now 33) Partner Networks, therefore the 13 networks of America Movil in the agreement are considered Partner Networks.
1 Vodafone Group Plc. Key Performance Indicator press release for the quarter to
30 June 2005 ,
25 July 2005 .
From its
31 March 2006 year end onwards Vodafone will report its results in accordance with
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It has issued results amended to IFRS standards for its
31 March 2004 and
31 March 2005 year ends for information purposes, and these are shown in the first table below.
Vodafone has some large minority stakes, in particular in Verizon Wireless in the United States and SFR in France, which are not included in its consolidated turnover. In order to provide additional information on the overall scale and growth trends of its business it publishes "proportionate turnover" figures and these are included in the tables below. For example, if a business in which it owns a 45% stake has turnover of £10 billion, that equals £4.5 billion of proportionate turnover for Vodafone. Proportionate turnover is not an official accounting measure and Vodafone's proportionate turnover should be compared with other companies' statutory turnover.
Vodafone also produces proportionate customer number figures on a similar basis, eg. if an operator in which it has a 30% stake has 10 million customers that equals 3 million proportionate Vodafone customers. This is a common practice in the mobile telecommunciations industry.
The following table shows Vodafone's results under
UK Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (UK GAAP). By the end of its key acquisition drive, which ran from 1999 to 2002, Vodafone had more than £100 billion of
Goodwill on its
Balance Sheet . As UK GAAP requires goodwill to be written off against the profit and loss account Vodafone has shown large statutory losses since then. However this write off of goodwill is purely an accounting adjustment and does not affect Vodafone's cash position or its ability to pay dividends. Despite the reported losses it is in reality a highly profitable company, and this is reflected in the fact that it has often been ranked among the top twenty companies in the world by
Market Capitalisation . Vodafone's accounts for the years shown in the table below include a great number of one off transactions, and apart from noting the rapid expansion of the group, no conclusions about underlying trends should be drawn from the figures without examining the accounts in more detail.
1 Vodafone Group Plc. Key Performance Indicator press release for the quarter to
30 June 2005 ,
25 July 2005 .
