Loss narrows at Vodafone Group - International Herald Tribune

Despite posting a second consecutive year of staggering losses, Vodafone Group on Tuesday forecast strong growth in emerging markets and was bullish about 2008, sending its shares to a five-year high.

The company, a European mobile phone giant, said it had a net loss of £5.43 billion, or $10.75 billion, in the 12 months ended March 31, a marked improvement from its loss of £21.9 billion a year earlier. Revenue increased 6 percent to £31.1 billion.

And here’s what Arun had to say..

Vodafone’s chief executive, Arun Sarin, said the company’s prospects looked brightest in high-growth emerging markets like Turkey and India. But he said mature European economies like Britain and Germany, where almost everyone has at least one mobile phone, would be squeezed by competition, government regulation and narrowing profit margins.

Ed of BlackFin sent me the following comment. He was NOT impressed with Arun.

Here’s the quote that really wound him up — from a post on Telecoms.com (which I can’t link to because their system is a bit crap with links):

Sarin called on the industry as a whole to work faster on its plans for Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next generation cellular technology, highlighting the faster than anticipated adoption of WiMAX on the world stage.

Ed commented:

Not sure if you’ve seen this. Makes my blood boil. He’s standing there like he’s the wise old man who knew this was coming all along. Er, year right.

Ahh yes, I remember now, I’ve been blind, how could I forget his persistent ear bashing of the industry over the last 3 years for not following Vodafone’s ‘all you can eat’ mobile internet packages – designed to show to the consumer that 3G and its later versions are good for you and that there’s no better communications platform.

Does this mean as of today he’ll lead the industry by example and drop mobile data charges in exchange for customer loyalty for fear of a massive exodus (I’m hyping it slightly) to Wifi based phones over metro level WiMAX? – I’ll check my RSS feeds for news, but don’t hold your breath

Thoughts?

Link: Vodafone Chief Predicts Flat Rate Pricing at MobHappy

Rather an odd story in Friday’s London Evening Standard. Hard on the heels of 3’s announcement on pricing for its X-Series, Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone “predicts” that flat rate monthly pricing would be the norm “within a matter of years”.

To someone who doesn’t work for an operator, this is a little puzzling. I mean, if it’s truly inevitable, as Mr Sarin suggests, why not just do it? What purpose is there to delaying the inevitable and particularly when any analyst and pundit you speak to agrees that it’s holding back the usage of the mobile web.

I like Russell’s perspective. Heh.

Come on Arun, why isn’t it the ‘norm’ today?

I reckon I know why. The reason we don’t have flat rate pricing today is that this nation is quite content paying, for example, 35p or 40p a minute to call mobiles on other networks.

If I was running a network operator, I’d be absolutely wetting myself with delight when I woke up every morning. My policy would be, ‘as long as they’ll pay it, charge it.’

Why bother swapping to flat rate pricing when you’re customers are stupid enough to just put up with it?

Sure, Arun and his colleagues at other operators will eventually need to move to flat rate, obviously. But our major cities don’t yet have blanket wifi coverage. Indeed, our lumbering giant, British Telecom is still charging people PER MINUTE to use it’s BT Openworld service. So it’s going to be a lonnnnnnnnnnng time, a good few years, before the majority of

We’re so indoctrinated into the expectation of paying-per-minute that the mums, dads and associated oldies — even the young’uns actually — don’t think twice about signing up to a service plan that includes 40p a minute charges to call other mobiles. I’ve been in many a Carphone Warehouse or a Vodafone store, witnessing folk signing up and looking over price plans and NOT ONCE has anyone ever said, ‘hold on a minute, 40p/min to talk to my mate on T-Mobile? You’re having a laugh! Change that, mate!’

Until the mobile users in this country (and beyond) indicate they’ve actually got a real problem with the ridiculous pricing structures of mobile telephony, then why bother changing?

At some point, one of the operators will break ranks… but, as Arun points out, it won’t be a for a wee while yet. They’re all making too much cash. Don’t rock the boat…

Link: 3 denies fresh sale rumours - ZDNet UK

Mobile operator 3 has denied it is putting its UK operations up for sale, while downplaying the revelation that it is cutting jobs at its Berkshire headquarters

Have a read of this apparently speculative note on ZDnet about Three. Who knows? Maybe they are for sale, eh?

Justin is CEO of NinetyTen, the people behind location based social network, BuddyPing. He dropped me this note to tell me about the experience his wife Aimee had with Vodafone. Deary me.

So Aimee and I spent the weekend in York with old friends, but alas, her phone was either lost or stolen on the train, and ended up in Edinburgh (I knew this because I did a lookup using buddyPing

Aimee didn’t want to report it lost/stolen because we assumed as it was in Edinburgh, just near the station, it was in Lost property. Lost Property is closed on the weekend, so she rang them this morning. We were told the phone was not there, and had probably been nabbed by the cleaners. After asking to be put through to the cleaners, she was told she couldn’t do that.

Right, assessment so far: Phone Stolen

Step 1:
Rring Vodafone, explain what has happened, block the SIM and phone and get a replacement on insurance. Talked to a nice lady in customer services who blocked the phone and sim.

Step 2:
Transferred to Insurance

Step 3:
A world of pain

It turns out that even though Aimee was a responsible person who did not want to jump the gun and end up with 2 phones, wasting her and Vodafone’s time, they wouldn’t pay out. Why!? Well, you see, she had to report her phone lost or stolen within 24 hours of the incident happening.

After protestations from Aimee, she asked to talk to someone more senior than her.
She was told she was the most senior person.
Aimee asked if she ran the department.
No.
So can she speak to the person who does.
No.
Why?
They are busy.
Well, I want to speak to them now.
Please hold (another 5 minutes on top of the 30 minutes she has been trying to sort it out)
I’m sorry, she is not available

And that was how it was left. Aimee has been told she can appeal, which she will do.

She is now left phone-less, and very pissed off.

Even though she has only had the phone for 2 months (plus a renewed Voda contract), I am seriously considering advising her to leave them, transfer he number and go to someone else.

Aimee, take it to Mr Sarin and get him to fix it. If he can’t resolve it, swap to another network. Don’t reward ‘em.

Just a quick note to urge all readers to quickly check out the Vodafone stock price on Google Finance.

Scroll down to the bottom right and look, under ‘blog posts’, there’s our first first Ask Arun column featured!

So if you’ve a question you’d like featured on an upcoming Ask Arun column, send it to askarun@smstextnews.com — I’ll do my best to speculate on an answer that he might give!

It’s only fitting that I use my executive powers here at SMS Text News to make sure the first question to be answered by the Ask Arun column is from my mum, April.

As always, neither Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone nor the Vodafone Group themeslves, are able to answer this question directly.  Thus, I do my best to try and come up with a sufficiently good enough speculative answer to substitute. 

So, to the first question.  Mrs April MacLeod writes:

Dear Arun,

I’m a professional homemaker in her mid-fifties.  I have been using a Nokia 3300 for some years on the Vodafone Pay As You Go service.  Recently I’ve become aware of the stylish nature of mobile handsets today.  Many of my friends now sport very modern, fashionable handsets that flip over.  I agree with my son — it is wholly inappropriate for me to bring my old, battered Nokia, out of my handbag to make phone calls.   I feel I need a phone that is a little more fashionable.  Please could you advise? 

PS: Mum sons tell me that the Vodafone ‘Simple’ range is not fashionable enough.

April

[Now, here is my attempt at a CEO-level response such as that which Arun might have responded with.]

Dear April,

Thank you for taking the time to write. 

Here at the Vodafone Group, we are committed to providing an extensive range of mobile telecommunications services, including voice
and data communications.  Despite what you may have read in the press recently, Vodafone is the world’s largest mobile
telecommunications company, with a significant presence in Continental
Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Far East through
the Company’s subsidiary undertakings, associated undertakings and
investments.  (You’ll understand that I can’t specifically comment on what we here in Newbury refer to as ‘the Verizon issue’.)

One of our core business principles is to help the people of the world to have fuller lives - both
through the services we provide and through the impact we have on the
world around us.  It therefore fantastic to receive your question and I am delighted that we’ve been able to provide you service for many years. 

Vodafone provides a wide range of customised mobile phone handsets for a diverse customer base.  In fact, we have over 170 million customers worldwide.  Quite a lot of them are old.  It’s for this reason that we recently introduced Vodafone Simply (sample screenshot, left), which, I note your sons have suggested you avoid.

Vodafone Simply takes the complication out of communication offering you two mobile phones that are easy to use and easy to understand.

However, I note that the handset style is of particular importance to you.  This isn’t a new phenomenon — handset manufacturers have, for quite a number of years, been continually innovating to develop increasingly fashionable handsets.  Motorola in particular has resurrected itself in recent years with it’s SLVR and RAZR handset range which it refers to as a ‘collection’. 

Motorola aren’t the only ones: Sony Ericsson were made by their T610 handset which millions bought.  Nokia, of course, were a little slow to catch on and are busy sorting it out with the N-Series. 

I have been pondering your needs for some time April and I’m now ready to recommend a particular handset.  The handset I’ve chosen is the Motorola V3x. 

It has a super, big vibrant screen, good big keys and a camera.  However, the best feature of the handset, given your stylish criteria, is that it looks good in a handbag.  When you want to make a call or use the device, you have to flip it open - which looks good! 

It has the added bonus of not being a 3 year old Nokia too.

So, April, I hope that this has answered your query.  Thank you once again for taking the time to write, and remember, our Vision is to be the world’s mobile communication leader –
enriching customers’ lives, helping individuals, businesses and
communities be more connected in a mobile world.

Yours
Ask Arun

If you have a question you’d like to put to Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone,  but you know you’ll never get an answer contacting Vodafone directly, please send it to askarun@smstextnews.com and we’ll do our best to speculate on an answer for you.

Following on from my exclusive interview without Arun Sarin, I’ve had quite a few requests from readers with more questions for him.

Quite a lot of the questions sent in are not really the sort of thing I want to be asking a person of his stature.  However there are a few good ones that deserve to be answered!  Obviously Arun himself is ‘not able’ (Vodafone’s words) to answer the questions.  The reply will be authored by myself — I will try to do my best to get the jargon right and give as best an approximation of an answer as I can do.

Thus, I am delighted to launch the Ask Arun column, brought to you exclusively by SMS Text News.  All reasonable questions will be 100% guaranteed not to be answered by Arun Sarin. 

So, if you’ve been troubled with a particular element of the Vodafone Group’s strategy, if you’re phone isn’t working, or if you’d just like to know one or two details about the columnist himself, unburden yourself: Send your questions to askarun@smstextnews.com.  You’ll feel much better for it.

Obviously, it goes without saying that as Vodafone are ‘not able’ to get invovled, the Ask Arun column is 101% unaffiliated with Vodafone.   Since they are ‘not able’ to, someone has to speculate on answers to these pressing issues.