Irish Vodafone clients continue to spend more

Vodafone customers in the Republic continue to spend more on mobile phone services than subscribers of any of the firm's other subsidiaries outside Japan.

New figures published yesterday by Vodafone for the three months to the end of June show Irish subscribers pay annual bills of €565, some €146 more than the company's British customers.

The group's key indicators also show that Vodafone added 25,000 new Irish users in the last quarter, boosting its total customer base to about 1.765 million.

The new average revenue per user figures - a standard industry measure of performance - for Vodafone Ireland represents a €42 increase, when compared with the same period last year.

It ranks Vodafone Ireland ahead of all the group's other operating units in terms of average revenues per user, except Japan which generates €628 per user. Mr Gerry Fahy, Vodafone Ireland's director of strategy, said this growth in average revenue per user reflected increased use of multimedia messages, ringtones and other data services.

But the strong operating performance of Vodafone Ireland will heighten concerns that the firm is charging too much in the Republic.

Last week the Consumer's Association of Ireland asked the Commission for Communication Regulation (ComReg) to intervene to force more competition in the mobile phone market.

Another lobby group representing the fixed-line telecoms sector, ALTO, has also recently accused mobile firms of ripping off consumers and called for cuts in Irish mobile phone charges.

Vodafone Ireland pledged yesterday to cut its termination rates - the fees it charges other telecoms operators to make a call to its network - next year using a formula based on the consumer price index minus 10 per cent. Mr Fahy said Vodafone Ireland's termination rates were among the lowest in Europe and he could not agree with the recent statements by the Consumer's Association of Ireland.

ComReg yesterday welcomed the pledges by Vodafone and O2 to reduce termination rates.

Customers were benefiting from cheaper rates because firms were passing on the benefits of the lower termination rates, it said.

The growth in Vodafone Ireland's average revenue per user was reflected across the group, with a £5 increase reflected at its British operations during the three months to the end of June to £297.

Shares in the firm, which are owned by more than 400,000 Irish people, fell 0.4 per cent to 118¼p, backing off after an earlier advance to 122p, which had been fuelled by better than expected subscriber.

Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile firm, grew its customer base by 2.5 million users to 122.7 million.

Meanwhile, Vodafone Ireland also said it would deploy a network of up to 50 broadband "hotspots" in hotels, shopping malls and other public places to enable users to connect to the internet at very high speeds. These "hotspots", which are based on wireless LAN technology, deliver download speeds of 500 kilobytes per second for computer users with a data card.