Vodafone Germany catches up to T-Mobile Germany: New subscriber numbers

[ShoresGuy]

15 November 2005
Vodafone Germany

Vodafone Germany's customer base has expanded by 540,000 to 28.3 million

Düsseldorf, 15 November 2005. Vodafone's mobile communications business continues to grow. Vodafone Germany's customer base expanded in the last quarter, from July to September 2005, by 540,000 to currently 28.3 million. Since the beginning of 2005, it has gained 1.3 million new customers. 815,000 of these already use UMTS. The company's sales and profits are also up.

Vodafone Germany's first six months of this year have been extremely successful. In the current 2005/6 financial year, it achieved growth in services revenues between April and September of three percent, compared with the same period last year, bringing the total up to EUR 4.1 billion. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased to EUR 2.0 billion and the EBITDA margin is still high at 46.4 percent. The growth drivers are still the expanding customer base and the increasing use of data services, especially UMTS data services. Vodafone Germany has 815,000 UMTS customers. 665,000 are mobile phone customers and 150,000 have Mobile Connect Cards for their laptops. UMTS services such as e-mail, mobile TV and mobile music are especially popular. They are responsible for the high increase in the contribution of data service turnover to overall turnover. Including messaging, non-voice services now account during the latest quarter for 19.5 percent of overall turnover. 4.3 percent of turnover was accounted for by non-voice services without messaging, compared with 2.6 percent in the same quarter last year. In absolute figures, turnover generated by pure data services has increased from EUR100 to 170 million. In the autumn quarter, 6.4 billion minutes' worth of telephone calls were made via the Vodafone network. This constitutes an increase of eight percent compared with the same quarter last year. Average monthly ARPU was EUR 24.4.

"Vodafone Germany is still realising customer growth. Further growth in business is being driven by UMTS and fixed network substitution products. Our clear focus on low-cost offers, such as the Per-Minute Packages, attractive UMTS services and the At Home product family is paying off," commented Friedrich Joussen, CEO of Vodafone Germany.

Key figures for the Vodafone Group:

There are 171 million customers in the 27 networks that Vodafone operates itself or in joint ventures with local providers (calculated in accordance with the percentage holdings). 4.9 million customers of the entire Vodafone Group now use UMTS. The Vodafone Group's mobile telecommunications revenue increased to GBP 17.7 billion with organic growth of 5.8%. The group EBITDA was GBP 6.7 billion with organic growth of 3.3.

Source: http://www.vodafone.com/article_with...273574,00.html

[Andy]

Didn't we talk about T-Mobile vs. Vodafone numbers a while ago and I said that I wouldn't be surprised to see Vodafone gain and/or pass T-Mobile in numbers?

[ShoresGuy]

Yep that was in the T-Mobile Q3 Results thread. I just checked the T-Mobile numbers and as of last month, they have 28.7 million.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Mobil...in_Deutschland

[Andy]

I bet you anything that vodafone is going to start something to heat up competition, but T-mobile will likely follow and do the same thing since both carriers are known to follow each other, price wise.