Vodafone

Vodafone Group Plc is one of the world's largest telecom groups. It provides a wide range of services, including voice communication, messaging, data and fixed communications. The company operates independently in 26 countries of the world, operates through partners in 49 more, and also provides broadband services in 19 markets (data for 2017).

History

2023

Sale of Spanish business to Zegona

On October 31, 2023, it became known that the Vodafone operator sells 100% of its Spanish company Vodafone Spain, considered a problem asset, to a British telecom investment firm called Zegona Communications. The transaction amount will be $5.3 billion (5 billion euros).

The sale of Vodafone Spain is a key step in restructuring our portfolio, which will allow us to grow and focus our resources on markets with stable structures - commented on the deal Margarita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone.

Vodafone sells 100% of its Spanish company Vodafone Spain

The deal came as no surprise, with Zegona recently confirming talks with Vodafone to potentially buy their Spanish business from the group.

This deal marks the return of Zegona to the Spanish market. The company was founded by former Virgin Media UK executives, and was already present in the Spanish telecom market. In 2015, the company acquired the Telecable cable channel, and then sold it in 2017 to Euskaltel.

This attractive purchase is our third deal in Spain. We are confident that we will bring a lot of profit to shareholders - commented on the purchase of Eamonn O'Hare, Chairman of the Board of Zegona.

Spanish Vodafone ranked third in the Spanish telecom market behind Movistar and Orange Spain. Orange has been in the process of merging with Masmovil since July 2022, but the deal has not yet received approval from the EU regulator. The agreement between Zegona and Vodafone could make changes to these plans - earlier sources in the Spanish press argued that the EU Commission could refuse Masmovil and Orange Spain to merge if Zegona bought Spanish Vodafone and sold it in pieces.^[1]

Dismissal of 11 thousand employees

On May 16, 2023, the British company Vodafone Group, one of the world's largest mobile operators, announced its intention to carry out a comprehensive restructuring. This program provides for a reduction in the number of personnel by about 11 thousand people over three years.

Group CEO Margherita Della Valle said Vodafone has an under-optimized organizational structure. This negatively affects financial performance and business development. In addition, changes are needed in light of the current macroeconomic environment, high inflation and declining consumer purchasing power.

Vodafone announced the dismissal of 11 thousand employees

Therefore, the company decided to reduce the staff, which at the beginning of 2023 amounted to about 104 thousand employees on a global scale. Thus, the layoffs will affect approximately 10.6% of the staff. The job cuts will affect Vodafone's headquarters in Britain and units in other countries.

The key goals of the restructuring are the transformation into a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa, as well as the creation of a leading European platform for business. To do this, Vodafone will provide consumers with a set of "simple and predictable" services. In addition, the potential of the Vodafone Business division, which, as noted, has good prospects against the background of the ongoing digital transformation of enterprises, will be maximized. The company will focus on those products and geographic regions that will provide the largest profit growth. The statement also said that significant funds will be allocated to improve customer experience and promote the brand in 2024, but the exact size of the investment was not disclosed.^[2]

Cellular network outage across Holland. Hospitals and emergency services left without communication

In mid-April 2023, mobile users from Vodafone across Holland faced problems in which they could not call and use the Internet for several days. The reason is the failure of the company's network.

According to the NL Times, many Vodafone customers reported that they had problems accessing the provider's mobile network from 3 a.m. Moscow time on April 14, 2023. Vodafone reported back at 09:00 that the cause had been found and the network had stabilised. Around 10:30 a.m., the telecom company said about 30% of the network was still suffering from problems. The company cannot say anything about how long it will be before the issues are resolved.

Vodafone mobile users across Holland face problems

Making routine phone calls became impossible for a large group of people, and calling emergency number 112 was also difficult. Several hospitals have told the NL Times that Vodafone's communications disruptions have made them less accessible to citizens in the Netherlands.

Vodafone warned customers by saying they could connect with 112, but they would likely not be understood by emergency operators. In addition, Vodafone customers are also unlikely to be able to hear what operators are saying. The mobile operator suggested calling 112 from a landline instead.

Some hospitals are Vodafone customers and therefore cannot get through or are less accessible to their patients. The major clinical hospital of Our Lady of Amsterdam, the Hospital Alrein in Leiden, Leiderdorp and Alphen an den Rein, Rotterdam's Francis Gastuis and Vlitland and the Deiklander Hospital in Purmerend and Hoorn were among the medical institutions that indicated this on their website. Rivierenland Hospital in Thiel and Maasstad Hospital in Rotterdam posted an announcement on their website to temporarily replace the phone number with another operator.

Vodafone reported that they found the cause of the accident and the malfunction is already becoming less serious, thanks to the work of the company's engineers. In case of problems, Vodafone customers can also call through services such as WhatsApp or FaceTime. Since these Internet services do not affect Vodafone interruptions and work smoothly.

As of April 2023, there are only three main telephone operators in Holland, all companies offer a wide variety of season tickets and prepayment packages. But only one of them is Dutch and it is called KPN, and the remaining two major players are the English operator Vodafone and the German T-Mobile. Vodafone is the second largest cellular operator in Holland.^[3]

2022

50% sale to Vantage Towers for $3.21 billion

In November 2022, Vodafone Group announced the sale of a stake in Vantage Towers, which focuses the group's telecommunications infrastructure. Asset buyers were investment companies KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Read more here.

Etisalat acquires 10% of Vodafone

In mid-May 2022, it announced the sale of a 9.8% stake in Vodafone to Emirates Telecommunications Group (Etisalat brand), the UAE's largest telecommunications company. The transaction value is $4.4 billion.

Vodafone is set for a long-term relationship with Etisalat, Reuters reported. Vodafone, like other mobile operators, is struggling in its more mature markets, where competition and regulation have led to lower prices, the agency said.

UAE's largest telecom company Etisalat buys 10% of Vodafone

Etisalat management notes that they do not intend to make an offer to buy the entire Vodafone. There are enough shares to influence the operator's activities, although so far the management of the Emirati company supports the current business strategy and the existing management team of the telecom operator.

Шаблон:Quote 'We see this investment as a good opportunity for Etisalat and its shareholders as it will enable us to strengthen and develop our international portfolio in line with our strategic ambitions, "said Etisalat CEO Hatem Dowidar. As of May 2022, the British Vodafone Group is one of the world's largest mobile operators, which owns and operates networks in almost 30 countries and has partner networks in fifty more. The e & investment in Vodafone, according to Reuters, speaks of the desire of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to enter new markets in Africa, Europe and Asia, as well as develop not only in the field of telecommunications, but also in the field of fintech and a variety of digital services for business. The group's net debt reached more than $46 billion in May 2022. Pressure is also being felt by its chief executive, Nick Reed, whose shares have lost over 20% since taking office in 2018.

In early 2022, the Emirates Telecommunications Group business was split into e & life (consumer services focused) and e & enterprise (representing digital services to government and business) companies, as well as the telecommunications arm of Etisalat.^[4]

2021

Orange and Vodafone discussed merger for six months

On December 6, 2021, it became known that the largest French telecommunications company Orange and British Vodafone discussed the merger of companies between mid-2020 and early 2021, but eventually abandoned the deal due to opposition from France. Read more here.

Using Amazon Cloud Services and Accenture Services to Develop Digital Services

The migration of applications to the cloud, along with the introduction of other Vodafone transformational solutions, causes significant cultural changes in the company that benefit employees, customers and favorably affect net profit indicators. Vodafone is gradually turning from a telecom company into Europe's largest software developer. The company announced this in early December 2021.

According to Siliconangle, the transformation of Vodafone from a "regular" telephone company into a cloud digital business is based on the introduction of managed AWS services such as Elastic Kubernetes Service and the Fargate service, which provides serverless computing resources to run AWS ECS and EKS containers. The integration of these solutions allowed Vodafone to focus on application development rather than server management - the company began building and deploying applications, APIs, and microservice architectures with container speed and stability.

Vodafone was able to strengthen as a developer after the transition to Amazon cloud services and the involvement of Accenture specialists.

This collaboration led to something reliable, scalable, reusable, removing a bunch of elements that were quite complex and routine until a couple of years ago. This was a big step forward, "said Accenture IT architect Mainard Williams, commenting on his company's work with Vodafone.

Vodafone transforms from telecoms company to Europe's biggest software developer

Before moving to the AWS cloud, Vodafone would take two or three months to deploy a new app or prepare for a major event, such as the announcement of a new iPhone or Black Friday. By early December 2021, the company has the ability to continuously deploy and scale applications as needed, according to Vodafone's chief information officer and head of digital engineering in the UK, Ben Connolly. This removed the barrier between the company and its customers, providing almost instant feedback.

Instant feedback also causes Vodafone employees to give more to their jobs, and their ability to immediately see the results of their work and the value they bring to production has led to the development of a new, more engaged culture within Vodafone's engineering teams.

There are just a huge number of things that we can put into production in such a short period of time that really brings to life our ability to sample and error, to A/B testing, canary deployment, "added Ben Connolly.[5]

Set of 7 thousand programmers to create digital services in Europe and Africa

At the end of October 2021, Vodafone announced the recruitment of 7,000 programmers to develop new digital services in Europe and Africa. By attracting a large number of IT developers, the telecommunications company, it hopes, will be able to launch new products and services 50% faster and simultaneously in several countries.

Vodafone explained that the investment will allow the telecom operator to create technology products and services faster and cheaper, including the Internet of Things (IoT), smart networks and cybersecurity. By attracting additional software skills, Vodafone is advancing its strategy to transform from a traditional telecommunications company into a massive next-generation communications and digital service provider. Expanding the capabilities of the software will allow the company to create differentiated products and services at lower prices and own intellectual property, and not purchase it through suppliers.

Vodafone attracts 7,000 programmers to create digital services

Vodafone Chief Technology Officer Johan Wiberg says the company is focusing on digital services to help drive revenue growth in the face of a challenging situation across major telecommunications. He said the company is building a global software brand to provide ultra-fast connectivity and digital products for its customers. Roles that increase the total number of software engineers in the company to about 16 thousand will combine retraining of existing personnel, attracting their own specialists and hiring about 7 thousand new employees.

By 2025, more than 50% of all Vodafone employees will be working in software development. Vodacom, part of the Vodafone Group, is also adopting a similar strategy by expanding digital and financial services across Africa.

Software engineers at Vodafone will be able to take advantage of the company's new technical career path, designed to recognize and develop technology experts to leadership positions within the company. They will be given the freedom to experiment and invent new services using a cloud digital architecture, which will be available to 300 million mobile subscribers, 28 million fixed broadband subscribers and 22 million television subscribers through platforms created by Vodafone.^[6][7]

Vodafone Egypt sale to Saudi Telecom

At the end of September 2021, it became known that Saudi Telecom began looking for a lender who could finance the purchase of Vodafone Egypt. Read more here.

Bringing Vantage Towers cell tower business to the exchange

In mid-March 2021, British mobile operator Vodafone brought its European telecommunications infrastructure division Vantage Towers to the exchange. Trading in shares started on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "VTWR." Read more here.

2020

Using a Blockchain Solution from Clear

On July 13, 2020, it became known that three mobile operators - Telefónica (), Spain () Deutsche Telekom Germany and Vodafone () - Great Britain completed testing and began to use it fully, which solution blockchain will allow automatic payments for. roaming It is assumed that this project will reduce capital costs and provide more efficient profit accounting and mutual calculations. More. here

BT and Vodafone need 5 years and billions to ditch Huawei equipment

In mid-July 2020, BT and Vodafone told British lawmakers that it would take them at least five years to replace equipment from China's Huawei if the government bans the company's products from 5G mobile networks. Read more here.

Disclosure of data on the movement of subscribers to the authorities to contain the outbreak of coronavirus

At the end of March 2020, Vodafone,, and Deutsche Telekom Orange five other telecommunication providers agreed to exchange data on the movement of subscribers with. European Commission It is assumed that this data will help the authorities contain the spread. coronavirus

Representatives from companies including Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Telenor, Telia and A1 Telekom Austria met with EU industry chief Thierry Breton. Many have raised concerns about the measures as they increase the risk of privacy breaches. However, the Commission will use anonymous data to protect privacy, Breton said. In addition, all data will be deleted after the crisis ends, the official said, adding that the EU plan does not include centralising mobile data or restricting citizens' freedom.

Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and five other telecom providers have agreed to share subscriber movement data with the European Commission

The European Data Protection Watchdog (EDPS) says the project does not violate privacy rules as long as the government provides certain safeguards.

The Commission must clearly identify the dataset it wishes to obtain and ensure its actions are traceable to avoid any possible misunderstandings, the EU watchdog said. - It is also preferable to restrict access to data - it should only be obtained by authorized experts in epidemiology, data protection and data science.

However, EDPS also considered it necessary to warn the public about the danger of measures taken, which from emergency can become permanent. A number of countries, from Singapore to Israel, are already using phone and contact tracking apps that should prevent the spread of the virus. It is still difficult to assess the effectiveness of these measures.^[8]

British telecoms conglomerate quits Libra Association

Britishtelecommunication The Vodafone conglomerate left the Association in early 2020, Libra which is responsible for the development cryptocurrencies Facebook^[9]

The reason for Vodafone's release is the decision to invest in the M-Pesa project and is not related to possible problems with financial regulators. The representative of the telecommunications company added that a return to cooperation is possible in the future, but now the funds will be used to develop their own digital initiative.

"We have said from the outset that Vodafone's desire is to make a real contribution to expanding financial inclusion... We will continue to monitor the development of the Libra Association and do not exclude the possibility of future cooperation, "he explained.

The conglomerate's decision to withdraw from the project was commented on by the head of policy and communications at Libra, Dante Disparte. According to him, changes in the structure will not affect the performance and plans of the Association.

In addition to Vodafone, seven more companies withdrew from Libra, including Visa, Mastercard and Paypal. The reason for this was the criticism of the project by financial regulators.

2019: Vodafone finds bookmarks in Huawei equipment

In early May 2019, telecommunications giant Vodafone announced the existence of a loophole in Huawei equipment for unauthorized access. The Italian division of the operator discovered the vulnerabilities back in 2009, but Huawei did not eliminate them even after the mobile operator contacted, citing production requirements. Read more here.

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