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Technology Stocks : Vodafone (VOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (53)	4/6/1999 9:36:00 PM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 109

Financial Times, April 7th MOBILE PHONES: Demand boosts shares By Alan Cane Shares in the UK's four mobile phone operators rose sharply yesterday after subscriber numbers for the January to March quarter proved much better than expected. In what is traditionally a quiet period for the cellular industry after the Christmas boom, the operators added almost 2m net customers, only slightly less than the 2.54m added in the preceding three months. The total for the UK is now almost 15m, indicating that roughly one in four British citizens now owns a mobile phone. The indications are that the explosion in demand for mobile phones is set to continue this year. Most of the new subscribers have opted for the "pre-paid" option, the principal cause of the revival last year in the fortunes of the mobile industry after several quarters of slow growth. Vodafone, for example, connected more than 2m net new customers during the 1998-99 financial year, almost four times the 563,000 connected in the previous year. Pre-paid subscribers neither have a contract with a service provider nor pay line rental. They pay for their calls before making them through a voucher system. The scheme has proved hugely popular with customers who dislike being tied to a contract or who have problems passing the credit checks necessary for conventional contracts. Vodafone consolidated its lead in the UK market, adding a net 700,000 subscribers in the quarter, bringing its total to 5.57m. Its shares rose from £11.82 to £12.07 yesterday. Cellnet exceeded analysts' expectations, adding a net 479,000 in the quarter, bringing its total to 4.52m. Shares in British Telecommunications, which has a majority stake in Cellnet, rose from £10.28 to £10.89. Orange added 370,000 net new subscribers in the quarter for a total of 2.53m. At 29 per cent, Orange has a lower proportion of pre-paid customers than the other operators, suggesting a higher rate of return. Its shares rose to £9.26½ from £8.94. One-2-One, whose owners, Cable and Wireless and US West, put the company up for sale last month, saw 329,000 net new subscribers join in the quarter, giving a total of 2.53m. The company, which was designed as a mass-market service, said it had more than 350,000 business customers, more than 100,000 on its "Precept" service.