Vodafone 2015 Annual Report Download - page 26

Our strategy (continued)
Unied
Communications
Our customers increasingly expect to connect to friends, information and
entertainment wherever they are, irrespective of the underlying technology.
We are growing our next-generation xed capability to meet their needs.
What is unied
communications?
More and more customers are consuming
bundled xed and mobile services which
often provide better value for money,
and increasingly, one single bill and one single
point of contact. To meet this evolving demand
requires seamless high speed connectivity
through the integration of multiple
technologies such as 3G, 4G, WiFi, cable and
bre – which we call “unied communications”.
The market opportunity
We are well established in mobile, with
a market share in Europe of over 20%.
In the xed market, where we are building
our presence, our share is currently around
10%, giving us a real opportunity to grow
in this space.
The bundling of xed and mobile services has
been a feature of the enterprise market for
several years and it is becoming increasingly
important for consumers too. In a number
of key European markets, a large share
of households already take combined xed
and mobile bundles – including 50% in Spain
and 25% in Portugal – and we see clear signs
of this expanding to other countries.
During the year our competitors launched
new convergent offers in several key European
markets and we started to respond with
our own offers. Therefore, it is critical for
us to continue to develop xed broadband
services alongside our established mobile
assets so that we can compete in this
growing segment.
Our xed strategy
Our goal is to secure access to high speed
xed broadband infrastructure in all our
major European markets. We will continue
to do this either through building our own
bre, wholesaling (renting) from incumbent
xed operators or acquisitions. We decide
which approach to adopt on a market-by-
market basis, taking into account the cost
of building our own bre, the economics of the
wholesale terms on offer, the speed of market
development, and the availability of good
quality businesses to acquire.
We have made good progress on our strategy.
During the year we completed the purchase
of two xed companies – Ono, Spain’s largest
cable company, and Hellas Online, a leading
provider of xed telecom services in Greece.
We are progressing well on the building of our
own bre networks in Italy, Spain and Portugal,
with preparations underway in Ireland.
Context
a Customers increasingly want access
to their content – photos, videos,
music, internet – wherever they are,
and on whatever device they are using –
phone, tablet, laptop or TV screen
a Customers are agnostic about using xed
or mobile networks – the most important
requirement is a reliable connection
a We are seeing a growing demand for both
combined xed and mobile bundles and
pay TV and broadband packages
a The growing demand for data requires
a strong backhaul network with high
speed xed bre or microwave capability
linked to the mobile radio network
Where we are going
a We expect xed revenue to become
more important to us over time as we aim
to increase our market share
a We aim to increase the number of xed
broadband users
a We expect to pass more households with
high speed bre or cable
a We aim to have the best in class
converged services including TV and all
services on one single bill
Project Spring achievements
a Increasing our next-generation xed line
infrastructure to 28 million households
a Increasing xed broadband customers
to 12 million
a Providing ve million customers with
high speed bre or cable broadband
220%
of service revenue from xed services
Fixed service revenue %
percentage of total service revenue
12
2013 2014 2015
16
20
0
15
10
5
20
Fixed broadband and million
TV customers
0.2
6.9
2013 2014 2015
9.2 8.3
12.1
9.1
0
10
5
15
Fixed broadband customers TV customers
Vodafone Group Plc
Annual Report 2015
24