Vodafone

http://www.vodafone.com

    Vodafone Group plc (the name stands for VOice-DAta-FONE) is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover, with equity interests in 27 countries and Partner Networks (networks in which it has no equity stake) in a further 27 countries.

    At 30 September 2005 Vodafone had 171.0 million proportionate customers in 27 markets across 5 continents. (Proportionate customers means for example that if Vodafone has a 30% stake in a business with a million customers that is counted as 300,000). On this measure it is the second largest mobile telecoms group in the world behind China Mobile. The six markets where it had more than ten million proportionate customers were: Germany; United States; Italy; United Kingdom; Japan; Spain. In the U.S these customers came via its minority stake in Verizon Wireless, and in the other five markets Vodafone had majority controlled subsidiaries.

    Vodafone is listed on the London Stock Exchange as Vodafone Group (LSE: VOD.L) and New York Stock Exchange, symbol VOD.

    Vodafone in Europe

    Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in Europe. The proportionate customer numbers are for 30 June 2005:

customer numbers are for 30 June 2005:

Country	Network Name (former)	Ownership	Proportionate Number of Customers	Status	Market Share	Official Website	Other Local Competitor/s
Albania	Vodafone	99.9%	670,000	Subsidary	48%	www.vodafone.al	AMC
Austria	A11	0%	--	Partner	39.4%	www.a1.net	T-Mobile, One, Telering, 3
Belgium	Proximus	25.0%	1,077,000	Affiliate	48.7%	www.proximus.be	Base, Mobistar
Croatia	VIPnet1	0%	--	Partner	46%	www.vipnet.hr	T-Mobile, Tele2
Cyprus	Cytamobile-Vodafone	0%	--	Partner		www.cytamobile-vodafone.com	Areeba
Czech Republic	Oskar Vodafone	99.9%	1,949,000	Subsidary	18%	www.vodafone.cz	Eurotel, T-Mobile
Denmark	TDC Mobil	0%	--	Partner	41.4%	www.tdcmobil.dk	Sonofon, Telia, 3
Estonia	Elisa Oyj (Radiolinja)	0%	--	Partner		www.elisa.ee	Tele2, EMT
Finland	Elisa Oyj (Radiolinja)	0%	--	Partner	30% (2003)	www.elisa.fi	Sonera, Finnet
France	SFR	43.9%	7,101,000	Affiliate	36%	www.sfr.fr	Orange, Bouygues Télécom
Germany	Vodafone (D2)	100%	28,259,000	Subsidary	37%	www.vodafone.de	T-Mobile, E-Plus, O2
Greece	Vodafone (Panafon)	99.8%	4,160,000	Subsidary	35.7%	www.vodafone.gr	Cosmote, TIM Hellas, Q Telecom
Hungary	Vodafone	100%	1,797,000	Subsidary	21.44%	www.vodafone.hu	T-Mobile, Pannon GSM
Iceland	Og Vodafone	0%	--	Partner	32% (2003)	www.ogvodafone.is	Síminn, Viking Wireless
Ireland	Vodafone (Eircell)	100%	1,981,000	Subsidary	54%	www.vodafone.ie	O2, Meteor, 3
Italy	Vodafone (Omnitel)	76.9%	17,499,000	Subsidary	35%	www.vodafone.it	TIM, Wind, 3
Lithuania	Bité (mobile operator)	0%	--	Partner		www.bite.lt	Tele2, Omnitel
Luxembourg	LUXGSM	0%	--	Partner	64% (2003)	www.ept.lu	Tango (Tele2), VOXmobile
Malta	Vodafone (Telecell)	100%	170,000	Subsidary	55% (2003)	www.vodafone.com.mt	Go Mobile
Netherlands	Vodafone (Libertel)	99.9%	3,860,000	Subsidary	23%	www.vodafone.nl	KPN, T-Mobile, Orange
Poland	Plus GSM	19.6%	1,545,000	Affiliate	33%	www.plusgsm.pl	Orange Polska, Netia Mobile, Era
Portugal	Vodafone (Telecel)	100%	3,663,000	Subsidary	34.3%	www.vodafone.pt	TMN, Optimus
Romania	Connex-Vodafone	99.1%	5,203,000	Subsidary	46%	www.vodafone.ro	Orange, Cosmote Romania, Zapp Mobile
Slovenia	Si.mobil-Vodafone1	0%	350,000	23.4%	Partner	www.simobil.si	Mobitel, Vega
Spain	Vodafone (Airtel)	100%	11,840,000	Subsidary	29%	www.vodafone.es	movistar(Telefonica's mobile arm), Amena,
Sweden	Vodafone (Europolitan)	0%	--	Partner	16% (2003)	www.vodafone.se	Telia, Tele2, 3 Spring Mobil
Switzerland	Swisscom	25.0%	1,008,000	Affiliate	62%	www.swisscom-mobile.ch	Orange, TDC, Tele2
United Kingdom	Vodafone	100%	15,489,000	Subsidary	24%	www.vodafone.co.uk	O2, Orange, T-Mobile, 3, Virgin Mobile
* Local company with more than 50% being owned by the parent company is considered a Subsidiary; Ownership of less than 50% makes the local company an Affiliate. Local companies without ownership at all are Partners.     History 1985-01-01: First phone call on Vodafone United Kingdom's analogue network. This event was staged, due to a network failure; the first calls actually being made the next day. The first call was made to Vodafone head office - which was at that point above a curry house in Newbury, 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 went live. July 1992: Vodafone United Kingdom's GSM network went live. September 1992: Vodafone Sweden's network went live. October 1992: Vodafone Portugal's (still as Telecel, Comunicações Pessoais, SA) network went live. July 1993: Vodafone Greece's network went live. July 1993: Vodafone Ireland's GSM network went live, as Eircell; a ETACS network had operated from ~1985. September 1995: Vodafone Italy's (still as Omnitel) network went live. November 1995: Vodafone Spain's (still as Airtel) network went live. Company introduces new logo, 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. 1999 Merger of AirTouch Communications, Inc. (AirTouch) and Vodafone Group, Plc. (Vodafone) February - April 2000: Vodafone enters German market by buying mobile network operator Mannesmann Mobilfunk GmbH & Co KG. The deal is one of the largest in European history. 2001-04-16 First 3G voice call on Vodafone United Kingdom's 3G network. 2001: Vodafone took over Eircell, then part of eircom in Ireland and rebranded it Vodafone Ireland. 2001-2002: Vodafone acquired Japan's third largest mobile operator J-Phone, which had introduced camera phones first in Japan. 17 December 2001: Vodafone intoduces the concept of Partner Network by signing TDC 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.) 2 February 2002: Finland is added into Vodafone's mobile community, as Radiolinja is signed as a Partner Network. Radiolinja later changed its named to Elisa. 2002: Vodafone rebranded Japan's J-sky mobile internet service as Vodafone live!™ as its mobile customer portal 3 December 2002: Vodafone brand is introduced in the Estonian market with signing of a Partner Network Agreement with Radiolinja (Eesti). Radiolinja (Eesti) would later change its name to Elisa. 7 January 2003: Vodafone signed a group-wide Partner agreement with mobilkom austria. As a result, Vodafone adds Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia in its partner network. 16 April 2003: Og Vodafone is introduced in the Icelandic market. The company is the result of the partnering of Og with Vodafone. 21 July 2003: Lithuania is added to Vodafone's worldwide network, with the signing of a Partner Netwrok agreement with Bité. 16 February 2004: Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Luxembourg's LuxGSM 20 February 2004: Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Cyta of Cyprus. Cyta agreed to rename its mobile phone operations to Cytamobile-Vodafone. November 2004: Vodafone introduced 3G services into Europe. June 2005: Vodafone increased its participation in Romania's Connex to 99%. Vodafone also bought Czech mobile operator Oskar. 1 July 2005: Oskar of Czech Republic is rebranded as Oskar-Vodafone 17 October 2005: Vodafone Portugal launches a new corporate logo, dropping the speech mark in the O's of the company name, and using the colour silver instead of white, but still retaining the red background. 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.) 28 October 2005: Connex in Romania is rebranded as Connex-Vodafone 31 October 2005: Vodafone reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Sweden to Telenor, the largest provider of telecommunications services in Norway, for approximately Euro 1 billion. The sale will be completed by the end of calendar year 2005. After the sale, Vodafone Sweden will become a Partner Network of the Vodafone Group, Plc. 13 December 2005: Vodafone won an auction to buy Turkey's second-largest mobile phone company, Telsim, for $4.5 billion. [1] 05 January 2006: The group announces the completion of the sale of Vodafone Sweden to Telenor

    Vodafone in Asia-Pacific

    Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the Asia-Paficic region. The proportionate customer numbers are at 30 June 2005:

    History

• 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.
• October 1st 2003: Vodafone changed the name of its Japanese subsidiary from J-Phone 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'
• August 2005: Vodafone released 3G technology in New Zealand
• October 2005: Vodafone begins releasing 3G technology in Australia
• 28 October 2005: Vodafone announces the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in India's Bharti Televentures, which operates the largest mobile phone network in India under the brand name AirTel. The acquisition involves two separate transactions.
• 22 December 2005: Vodafone announces the completion of the acquisition of the 10% stake in Bharti Televentures of India.

    Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the Middle East and Africa region. The proporationate customer numbers are as at 30 June 2005.

    History

• May 1998: Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name ClickGSM.
• 18 September 2002: Vodafone signs a Partner Netwrok Agreement with MTC group of Kuwait. The agrrement involved the rebranding of MTC to MTC-Vodafone.
• 29 December 2003: Vodafone signs another Partner Network Agreement with Kuwait's MTC group. The second agreement involves the co-operation in Bahrain and the branding of the network as MTC-Vodafone.
• 3 November 2004: Vodafone announced that its South African affiliate Vodacom has agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone live! and partner agreements, to its local market.
• 3 November 2005: Vodafone announces that it is in exclusive talks to buy the 15% stake of VenFin in Vodacom 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 in the Americas

    Vodafone currently operates in the following countries in the America region.

Country	Network Name (former)	Ownership	Proportionate Number of Customers	Market Share	Official Website	Other Local Competitor/s
Argentina	CTI Móvil	0%	--		www.cti.com.ar	Personal, movistar
Brazil	Claro	0%	--		www.claro.com.br	Vivo, TIM, Oi
Chile	Smartcom	0%	--		www.smartcom.cl	movistar, Entel PCS
Colombia	Comcel	0%	--		www.comcel.com	movistar
Ecuador	Porta	0%	--		www.porta.net	movistar, Alegro PCS
El Salvador	CTE Personal	0%	--		www.telecom.com.sv	movistar, Tigo, Digicel
Guatemala	PCS Digital	0%	--		www.pcsdigital.com.gt	movistar, Tigo
Honduras	PCS Honduras	0%	--		www.alo.hn
Mexico	Telcel	0%	--		www.telcel.com	movistar, Iusacel, Unefon
Nicaragua	Enitel	0%	--		www.enitel.com.ni
Paraguay	CTI Móvil	0%	--		www.cti.com.py
Peru	Claro	0%	--		www.claro.com.pe	movistar
United States	Verizon Wireless	44.4%	49,300,000		www.verizonwirless.com	Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile
Uruguay	CTI Móvil	0%	--		www.cti.com.uy
* Local company with more than 50% being owned by the parent company is considered a Subsidiary; Ownership of less than 50% makes the local company an Affiliate. Local companies without ownership at all are Partners.

    History

   United States In the United States, Vodafone owns 44.4%① of Verizon Wireless, the country's second largest mobile carrier. However, the phone company (Verizon) 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 abovementioned incompatibility with the GSM standard used by Vodafone's other networks, and the consequent difficulty of offering roaming between Vodafone's US 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 US operations, and (perhaps more importantly) has no control of dividend policy at Verizon Wireless and is thus entirely at the mercy of Verizon management with respect of 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.

    Latin America 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 Partner Networks, therefore the 13 networks of America Movil in the agreement are considered Partner Networks

①Vodafone Group Plc. Key Performance Indicator press release for the quarter to 30 June 2005, 25 July 2005.

    Financial results

    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 is consistently one of 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.

    Vodafone Group Plc. Key Performance Indicator press release for the quarter to 30 June 2005, 25 July 2005.

    Corporate sponsorship

• Clare GAA, Ireland (formerly sponsored by Eircell)
• Daily Express Life Savers Awards
• David Beckham A two-year deal that was signed in 2002, later extended by another 12 months then ended in July 2005
• DTM (the German touring car series)
• England cricket team
• Vodafone Oaks and Vodafone Derby horse races at Epsom.
• Manchester United football till the end of 2005/6 soccer season, which ends Vodafone's four-year shirt deal, two years earlier than planned.
• Newbury AFC (The football club from Newbury, where Vodafone was founded.)
• Ferrari Formula One constructor (until 2006)
• McLaren Formula One constructor (from 2007)
• UEFA Champions League from the 2006/7 season
• New Zealand Warriors Rugby League team (until 2007)

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