Vodafone on a Roll!
SOURCE: Vodafone Group Plc
World-Wide Customer Boom for Vodafone
NEWBURY, United Kingdom, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Customer connection figures published today by Vodafone Group Plc showed an unprecedented world-wide boom in the growth of new customers. In the half year ended March to September 1998 Vodafone connected almost one and a half million net new customers around the world, an increase of nearly 250 per cent on the same period in 1997. At 30 September, Vodafone provided service to more than 7,336 million customers around the world.
In the UK, Vodafone ended the period with a customer base of more than 3,940,000. During the six months to the end of September Vodafone connected more than 500,000 net new customers in the UK -- a massive increase of 335 per cent on the equivalent period in 1997. During the calendar quarter, July to September Vodafone connected over 302,000 net new customers, -- up almost 100,000 on the previous calendar quarter -- including more than 127,000 net new customers who joined the Pay as You Talk service. Vodafone now has over 419,000 customers using Pay as You Talk.
Vodafone's proportionately adjusted international customer base grew by almost one million customers in the half year to the end of September and a record 508,000 in the second quarter alone. Vodafone's international customer base now stands at more than 3,396,000 and represents over 46 per cent of the Group's total customer base.
Commenting, Chris Gent, Chief Executive of Vodafone Group Plc, said: ''I am delighted with the rapid progress we are making in all our markets throughout the world. In the UK the price reductions and the restructuring of our distribution companies are having the desired effect of driving the market forward. Overseas our eleven operating companies produced accelerating customer growth. They will be joined in the near future by our newly acquired New Zealand GSM network and our operation in Egypt which will soon launch its new GSM network.''
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