Vodafone NZ's annual revenue dips as competition mounts
Vodafone NZ's annual revenue dips as competition mounts
By Paul McBeth
May 20 (BusinessDesk) -
Global telecommunications firm Vodafone Group has reported a
dip in its New Zealand revenue amid increased
competition.
The New Zealand unit reported a 2.6
percent decline in service revenue in the 12 months ended
March 31 "as a result of aggressive competition," offsetting
gains in other Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific nations,
the London Stock Exchange parent said in a statement. The
New Zealand unit's performance also weighed on the region's
earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation.
While revenue was down, the New Zealand
division lifted its contract mobile base 4.6 percent in the
year, and the parent company said its fixed line assets,
purchased from TelstraClear in 2012, "benefited from
continued uptake of VDSL, TV and unlimited
broadband."
Vodafone New Zealand, the country's
biggest mobile phone operator, posted a loss of $27.9
million in the 2014 financial year, its first loss in 13
years, even as revenue climbed 16 percent to $2.06
billion.
The carrier added 32,000 connections in the
March quarter, taking it to 2.36 million customers as at
March 31, of which 63.5 percent were on prepay plans.
Vodafone has been losing customers in an increasingly
competitive landscape since Two Degrees Mobile entered the
market in 2009, grabbing 23 percent of the market by
customers and 17 percent by revenue.
Vodafone's New Zealand unit reported 409,000 fixed broadband customers as at March 31, down from 424,000 three months earlier as it disconnected a net 1,000 customers and removed 14,000 other customers as a result of restating its customer base.
The mobile operator acquired the fixed-line business in October 2012, expecting to slash back-office duplication, use TelstraClear's backhaul and transmission services, and cut its reliance on Chorus. It amalgamated that unit into the wider New Zealand group in March last year, valuing the assets at $843.6 million.
(BusinessDesk)