Vodafone Has 8.5m UK 4G Customers

Vodafone now has 8.5m 4G customers and is claiming 96 percent 4G coverage, while it has accrued 167,000 broadband users since the launch of its fixed service last year.

The company is still to reveal details about its planned Vodafone TV service, the final component of its quad-play package, but added that field trials are underway for a 2017 launch.

UK service revenues were down 2.7 percent during the first half of 2016, a drop blamed on reduced roaming income, a slowdown in the enterprise fixed line market and billing migration.

Vodafone 4G

Indeed the complications associated with the latter project were so severe that they contributed to a record £4.6 million fine issued by Ofcom and caused Vodafone to rocket up the complaints table.

There was some good news in the period though as research firm P3 named Vodafone as the joint-best 4G network in the UK.

Across Europe, Vodafone’s 4G user base stands at 39.3 million, a 15 million year on year increase, and data traffic has risen by 61 percent.

Vodafone has made huge investments in fixed line broadband rollout and acquisitions in recent years and it now has 12.9 million home broadband customers – 7 million of which are on Vodafone’s own fibre infrastructure.

The Newbury-based company has also been a major IoT player and held the first trial of Narrowband IoT (Nb-IoT) technology on a commercial network earlier this year. Across all markets, IoT connections grew 29 percent year on year to 45.4 million and revenues rose by 17.2 percent.

“As Europe’s fastest-growing broadband operator, we are driving rapid uptake of our consumer fixed and TV services while our wholly converged Enterprise business continues to outperform its peers,” boasted Group CEO Vittorio Colao.

Vodafone recorded global revenues of €27 billion, down 3.9 percent year on year, and an operating profit of €2.9 billion, up from €2.3 billion. However it sustained a €4.7 billion loss, down from a €1.1 billion profit last year, due to foreign currency fluctuations and a €5 billion write down of its operations in India.

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