Vodafone sees 2.5m customer boost

Monday, 28 July 2003 12:00 AM

The mobile phone operator, Vodafone announced today that it has seen its subscriber numbers increase by 2.5 million people in the last three months.

Vodafone said that its subscriber numbers have increased to 122.7 million people worldwide in the first quarter of 2003, an increase of 18% on its customer base in June 2002.

The company's Chief Executive, Christopher Gent, welcomed the better-than-expected figures and claimed the company was 'well on-track' to achieve its goal of 10% growth in customers and revenues.

Mr Gent stated, "These figures demonstrate continued strong operational performance and are in line with or slightly better than our expectations when we provided our outlook for the financial year. In particular, we are well on track to achieve more than 10% growth in average proportionate customers and a similar growth in revenues."

The company announced that its Vodafone live! product which offers picture messaging and e-mailing services has now been taken up by 1.75 million people, with over 580,000 in Germany and over 420,000 in the UK.

The company's average revenue per user (APRU) in its European markets increased during the three month period. APRU in the UK has increased by £5 to £297 in the latest three months compared to the three months ending March 2003. The company claimed that increased customer usage and tariff changes in prepay has led to the improvement in revenues.

APRU in Italy increased from ?347 to ?351, which was driven by an increased focus on higher value customers, particularly in the corporate segment,

APRU in Germany remained stable at ?313, which reflected the continuing popularity amongst new customers of lower usage and lower contract tariffs.

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