Hanover, 3 March 2008. Friedrich Joussen, CEO of Vodafone Germany, presented the company's growth strategy at the CeBIT 2008 press conference. It focuses on Vodafone's customer orientation. "We want our customers to be our fans. Our growth strategy has three main pillars: a broadband network, customer proximity and intuitively-operated products. Our further growth depends on our customers' willingness to recommend us to other people," said Friedrich Joussen at the CeBIT press conference.
"The world telecommunications market is booming, especially the mobile communications sector. Over three billion people around the globe are mobile phone users, and over two billion of these live in emerging and developing nations," explained Friedrich Joussen. Mo-bile communications is a genuine breakthrough into the modern world for these countries. "For the first time ever, many people in these countries have access to telecommunica-tions, knowledge, education and business. Mobile communications is making a decisive contribution to their economic development. Vodafone is the world's leading mobile com-munications provider and, as such, it is also making an important contribution to the devel-opment of these regions. One example is the M-PESA mobile money transfer service, which is already used by almost two million people in Kenya and is now being launched in Afghanistan."
Vast growth opportunities also exist for Vodafone in western Europe and Germany. Despite the 118 percent mobile phone market penetration in Germany, the number of active mobile communications devices is still increasing. Only one in two households have DSL broad-band internet. And there's even greater potential in the mobile internet market. This year and last year, over ten million notebooks were and will be sold, yet not even twenty percent of them are connected up to the mobile internet via the 3G network. And around 33 million Germans are e-mail users, yet only one in ten of them read their e-mails on their mobile phone.
"We're setting the course for growth. The best way of achieving this growth is to make sure that our customers are our fans. Our future growth depends on three key parameters: a broadband network, customer proximity and intuitively-operated products," said Friedrich Joussen.
There is already very good broadband coverage. Over 80 percent of the population has HSDPA with 3.6 mbit/s and there are over 350 hotspots with up to 7.2 mbit/s. "We'll be demonstrating the next generation mobile broadband, which can achieve speeds of up to 28.8 mbit/s, at CeBIT. The core network that we operate with Arcor means that we are optimally equipped for even better broadband coverage," commented Friedrich Joussen.
A new shop concept and shop presence improvements are in the pipeline so that Vodafone can be closer to its customers. The employees at the shops, and the hotline operators, will also have greater decision making powers in future. "We want our customers to be our fans. It's extremely important that our customers are so satisfied with our services that they recommend Vodafone to other people. That's the benchmark that we'll now be using to measure our success," announced Friedrich Joussen.
The third element of Vodafone's growth strategy is the intuitive operation of all its products. "We want to make things as simple as possible for our customers, and we want our pro-ducts to appeal to them whatever their user profile," said Joussen. One example of an intuitive function is the new 1-click e-mail activation function on mobile phones. Another is an image rather than text-based search engine that Vodafone is presenting. Users take a photo with their mobile phone and send it off to the search engine to get information about the product, newspaper article, music CD, or tourist attraction that they have photographed sent to their handset. "We develop innovations that inspire people," said Joussen.
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Vodafone Germany is one of the largest and most modern telecommunications providers in Europe. It serves almost 34 million customers, realises turnover of more than EUR 8 billion and has 9,000 employees. Vodafone Germany is an innovative technology and service enterprise, offering a comprehensive range of mobile communication services from one provider. The portfolio includes mobile communications and fixed network telephony, as well as data services for business and private customers. Continuous development, numerous patents and investments in new products, services and the modern network have made Vodafone an innovation leader in the German telecommunications market. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf. Eight branch offices and a chain of 1600 Vodafone shops keep us close to our customers. The Vodafone Germany group of companies also includes a majority shareholding in the Arcor telecommunications group, which is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany. Vodafone Germany is committed to CSR and it additionally supports numerous projects through the German Vodafone Foundation.
The company is part of the Vodafone Group. Visit the website at www.vodafone.de for further information.