Vodafone Australia

Synopsis

Vodafone is the third-largest mobile carrier in Australia, and was formed as a 50/50 joint venture in 2009 following the merger of Vodafone Australia and Hutchison 3G Australia. The two equal shareholders of Vodafone are Vodafone Group Plc and Hutchison 3G Australia. Hutchison Whampoa remains the majority shareholder of Hutchison Telecoms, with an 88% stake. While in late August 2011, a further transition of the merged company began as new and renewing subscribers from 3 now can only choose Vodafone services.

Vodafone now owns and operates the mobile brands of Vodafone, 3 and Crazy John’s, and offers a comprehensive suite of prepaid and postpaid mobile voice and mobile data products to both consumer and business customers. In early 2011 the company was under fire from consumers for alleged poor service and coverage issues, while the company was also dealing with internal security issues resulting in privacy breaches.

Since then, network upgrades across Australia including LTE have commenced and will continue during 2011-2013. These upgrades and new towers should bring the quality bandwidth that is necessary to keep the ever growing expansion of mobile broadband usage that the company has been experiencing. Vodafone also began working with NBN Co in a fixed-line broadband trail in the NBN test sites in mid-2011.

In this report we provide an overview of Vodafone, with analysis, commentary, including statistics in tabular and easy-to-read chart formats.

Companies mentioned

Companies mentioned in this report include – Apple, Telstra, Optus, VHA, Vodafone, 3, Hutchison (HTA).

Hot topics and technologies mentioned

Hot topic and technology mentions in this report include – 4G, Apps, Cloud Computing, Long-term evolution (LTE), ARPU, High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, WCDMA, NBN.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Company information
  • 2.1 Overview
  • 2.2 Subscriber and dealer backlash
    • 2.2.1 Possible legal class action
    • 2.2.2 Possible dealer legal class action
    • 2.2.3 Privacy concerns
• 3. Company analysis
  • 3.1 Major setback for the company
  • 3.2 Vodafone restructure – a misdirection?
• 4. Financial highlights
  • 4.1 Overview FY2011 H1
  • 4.2 Highlights FY2010
  • 4.3 Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) (HTA) financial highlights for FY2010
• 5. Operating highlights
  • 5.1 Overview FY2011 H1
  • 5.2 Overview FY2010
• 6. Vodafone – 3 merger
  • 6.1 Update on merger – September-2011
  • 6.2 Update on merger – mid-2010
  • 6.3 Initial competition concerns unwarranted
  • 6.4 High level facts and figures of the merger
  • 6.5 Analysis mid-2009 – update mid-2010
  • 6.6 Positive and negative elements
  • 6.7 Outlook
• 7. Networks
  • 7.1 Background
  • 7.2 Vodafone network
  • 7.3 3 network
  • 7.4 New 2100MHz network developments from Vodafone – late 2010
  • 7.5 Network upgrades – 2010 - 2012
  • 7.6 LTE testing
  • 7.7 Vodafone to work in NBN trial area with fixed-line broadband
• 8. Related reports

• Table 1 – VHA key metrics – financial overview – 2009 - 2011
• Table 2 – Monthly ARPU by segment – 2009 - 2011
• Table 3 – Vodafone operational overview – subscribers, ARPU, CoA – 2009 - 2011
• Table 4 – Vodafone – subscribers by type – 2009 - 2011
• Table 5 – Vodafone data subscribers by type – 2009 - 2011

• Chart 1 – VHA financial overview – 2009 - 2011
• Chart 2 – Overall monthly ARPU – 2009 -2011
• Chart 3 – VHA ARPU by segment – 2009 - 2010
• Chart 4 – Vodafone subscribers prepaid versus postpaid – 2009 - 2011
• Chart 5 – Vodafone 3G subscribers versus mobile broadband subscribers – 2009 - 2011

• Exhibit 1 – Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) at a glance – 2011