Vodafone returns to growth

Vodafone Ireland added a further 10,500 subscribers during its first quarter of 2010, the company said today.

The firm said it gained 6,000 mobile customers during the quarter to give it a total of 2.15 million mobile subscribers .

In addition, the company’s fixed line and DSL business stood at 197,859 at the end of the quarter, bringing its total telecoms base to 2.35 million.

Blended monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) decreased by 9.1 per cent to €35.10 over the year ended June 30th.

Vodafone Ireland’s customers used on average 263 voice minutes and 201 text messages each month in the first quarter.

On a yearly basis 1.29 billion text messages were sent in the 12 months to the end of June, up 17 per cent on the same period a year earlier. During the same period, 1.64 billion voice minutes were consumed, a rise of 3 per cent.

The company, which today began selling price plans for the Apple iPad device, also recently began rolling-out a new 24Mbps uncongested broadband service to almost 550,000 lines in Ireland.

Vodafone Ireland said that to date 41 exchanges have been upgraded and the services will be available to over 70 per cent of the population by the end of this year.

Elsewhere, Vodafone Ireland's parent company announced a return to growth in the first quarter with a rise in organic service revenue across a number of markets including Germany and Britain.

The Vodafone group said service revenue totalled €10.59 billion, up 1.1 per cent organically, and compared to a 0.2 per cent drop in the fourth quarter. European service revenue was down by 1.7 per cent but this was better than the previous quarter.

Total group revenues for the first quarter were €11.26 billion.

“These are the first quarterly results to show service revenue growth since the global recession impacted. We have achieved these results through our continuing commercial approach in key European markets, focusing especially on data, and from strong growth in emerging markets, with India now cash positive at an operating level and our highest ever quarterly revenue in Turkey,” said Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao.