Vodafone does not manufacture anything, however in 2006/07 we spent more than £20 billion on purchasing products and services. We source equipment for our networks, and the handsets we sell, from third party manufacturers who themselves source components and assembled products from other suppliers.
Unlike supply chains in some other sectors, Vodafone's suppliers of telecommunications and IT equipment are mainly large multi-nationals (often well known brands) that either operate their own assembly factories or source from independent manufacturers, or both.
We also source services from companies around the world.
We want to work with suppliers that maintain high labour and environmental standards and our Code of Ethical Purchasing (CEP) sets out our expectations of suppliers. Our strategy is to engage directly with our first-tier suppliers and assess their compliance with the CEP. We emphasise their need to engage with their own suppliers in a similar way.
The electronics supply chain has been the subject of several recent NGO reports, highlighting CR issues. Our strategy is influenced by feedback from our stakeholders.
We are working with other companies in our sector to bring capability improvements to the ICT industry as a whole through industry partnership.
