Vodafone
Vodafone

Vodafone

Vodafone Weighs Change in Japan

Wireless giant Vodafone added 4.1 million new users – that’s the population of New Zealand – in its strongest quarter for the past five years. Now it will focus its efforts on improving its Japanese business, according to Chief Executive Arun Sarin. Average revenue per customer have slipped in that country, as well as in the U.K. and Germany. Sarin’s not averse to the idea of selling underperforming operations in Japan, where Vodafone languishes behind NTT DoCoMo and KDDI: “We’re not married to any asset. If an asset loses its usefulness to us.. we’d be willing to look at (a disposal),” he was quoted as saying by AFX News.

Vodafone Key Performance Indicators

The Vodafone Group today announced its key performance indicators (KPI’s) for the 1 April to 30 June 2005 period. KPI’s relevant to Vodafone K.K., along with a summary of customer numbers*1, are as follows. The closing total customer base was 14,966,600. Vodafone K.K. had a net reduction of 74,100 for the quarter, but recorded positive net additions of 5,300 in June. 3G subscriptions increased by 382,200 to 1,299,400 in the quarter, increasing the 3G customer percentage from 6.1% to 8.7%. The percentage of prepaid customers was 11% at the end of June 2005, unchanged from at the end of March 2005.

i-mode Slow Down Under

According to a Telstra insider, the take-up of iMode, which allows customers to surf the internet on a customised handset, has been far from overwhelming. Telstra has signed up less than 50,000 customers to date, with one insider putting subscriber numbers at closer to 30,000. Meanwhile, Vodafone Live, has gathered more than 400,000 Australian customers since April 2003. A Telstra spokesman said it was important to remember that while iMode had had a “soft” launch in November, it was yet to be offered by Telstra’s entire dealer network.

Vodafone Japan to Open Network

Vodafone will consider hosting so-called virtual network operators as part of a move to target specific market segments. The world’s largest mobile phone operator has so far been very selective in letting potential rivals on to its networks around the world, although it recently signed a deal with Extreme Sports in the UK. The change of direction was revealed on Tuesday by Bill Morrow, the former head of the UK business, who was parachuted into the troubled subsidiary three months ago as part of a management shake-up.

.mobi Domain Approved

Not really ‘news’ since ICAAN cleared the final hurtles on 3 June, yet the Web is alive today [Google News] with this story. We reported back in December 2004 on the possible approval of the .mobi domain extension; we guess the admin folks at mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd, based in Dublin, will have their hands full. Apparently their contract was signed with ICANN in Luxembourg last night and new .mobi domains will be on sale in the first half of 2006.

Vodafone K.K. Acquires New 3G Trial License for 1.7GHz Spectrum

Vodafone K.K. announced today that it has acquired a preliminary license from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which was applied for on 27 April 2005, to operate W-CDMA experimental radio stations on the 1.7GHz frequency band, marking the first time for an existing mobile operator in Japan to receive such a license. Vodafone K.K. currently offers 3G services on the 2GHz frequency band. However, due to an increasing number of 3G customer contracts and the proliferation of packet communication flat-rate services, a rapid increase in 3G traffic is expected, which would make current 2GHz frequency band capacity insufficient.