3GScottishUser
21st September 2005, 10:23 AM
From This Is Money.co.uk (21/09/2005):
VODAFONE is piling on videophone customers and plans to flood the troublesome Japanese market with a new array of handsets in a bid to turn around its business there.
3G is taking off - at least, Vodafone hopes it will in Japan
The mobile giant told analysts visiting its Newbury headquarters that it added 1m 3G customers worldwide in July and August, accelerating its growth rate.
Chief executive Arun Sarin wants to lure 10m more customers by next March with the promise of video clips and fast music downloads to the phones.
New handsets are heading to the shops in time for the annual Christmas bun-fight for customers. A new technology to soup up download speeds fourfold arrives in mid-2006.
Bill Morrow, head of struggling Vodafone Japan, will introduce another 10 handsets this year after supply problems left it trailing local rivals NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. He has high hopes for a phone that can be plugged into a television-to double as a karaoke machine as well as gaudy rubber phone covers.
Sarin dodged questions on increasing shareholder returns. Vodafone will shell out up to £7bn this year on share buybacks and dividends, but the City thinks it could afford more.
The story with acquisitions was unchanged. Sarin would dearly love to buy out majority shareholders in its Polish and French businesses but progress is slow.
Vodafone signed up 101,000 new 3G customers in the UK in the last two months. In contrast, rival 3 added only 200,000 new users in the last five months, after culling at least 300,000 'dormant' customers from its base. It is being groomed for a £1bn stock market flotation next year. A successful flotation would be very good for the industry,' said Frank Sixt, finance chief of 3's Hong Kong-based parent Hutchison Whampoa.
He will wait to see how the listing of its Italian sister firm fares before pushing ahead. 'It is all the same investment community,' he added.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=403785&in_page_id=2
VODAFONE is piling on videophone customers and plans to flood the troublesome Japanese market with a new array of handsets in a bid to turn around its business there.
3G is taking off - at least, Vodafone hopes it will in Japan
The mobile giant told analysts visiting its Newbury headquarters that it added 1m 3G customers worldwide in July and August, accelerating its growth rate.
Chief executive Arun Sarin wants to lure 10m more customers by next March with the promise of video clips and fast music downloads to the phones.
New handsets are heading to the shops in time for the annual Christmas bun-fight for customers. A new technology to soup up download speeds fourfold arrives in mid-2006.
Bill Morrow, head of struggling Vodafone Japan, will introduce another 10 handsets this year after supply problems left it trailing local rivals NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. He has high hopes for a phone that can be plugged into a television-to double as a karaoke machine as well as gaudy rubber phone covers.
Sarin dodged questions on increasing shareholder returns. Vodafone will shell out up to £7bn this year on share buybacks and dividends, but the City thinks it could afford more.
The story with acquisitions was unchanged. Sarin would dearly love to buy out majority shareholders in its Polish and French businesses but progress is slow.
Vodafone signed up 101,000 new 3G customers in the UK in the last two months. In contrast, rival 3 added only 200,000 new users in the last five months, after culling at least 300,000 'dormant' customers from its base. It is being groomed for a £1bn stock market flotation next year. A successful flotation would be very good for the industry,' said Frank Sixt, finance chief of 3's Hong Kong-based parent Hutchison Whampoa.
He will wait to see how the listing of its Italian sister firm fares before pushing ahead. 'It is all the same investment community,' he added.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=403785&in_page_id=2