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Vodafone Australia is eyeing new content partnerships including bringing video services to its customers as the No 3 mobile player embarks on a three-year strategy to return to subscriber and profit growth.
The rebooted strategy was unveiled yesterday by Vodafone’s local boss, Inaki Berroeta, who said the company would this year enter a “new phase” after signing off on the objectives of previous chief Bill Morrow, who was brought in to restore its battered brand after the company haemorrhaged customers in the wake of network problems in 2011.
Mr Berroeta, who next month will mark his first year in the job, said 2014 had seen the telco greatly improve its reputation among consumers, lifting its net promoter score — a measure of customer satisfaction — by 16 points on the back of iPhone 6 sales that went “gangbusters”.
“Over the next three years our ambition is to grow the business in terms of customers and also financially,” Mr Berroeta said.
“Our role in this market is to bring new things (to customers) and to challenge the established players and give them more of a battle for customers and the overall market.”Mr Berroeta said Vodafone had met all its financial and customer targets for 2014 and said the company’s 50-50 shareholders — Vodafone Group and Hutchison Whampoa — continued to “heavily invest” in the mobile operator.
“We have the support of the shareholders to continue the running of this business,” he said. “I think we are in a very good position with very good momentum.”
In order to maintain that momentum Mr Berroeta said Vodafone would increase its retail footprint and sign new content deals to lure customers away from Optus and Telstra.
The company already has in place content partnerships with online music streaming business Spotify and newspaper publisher Fairfax Media. But Mr Berroeta said a new partnership with a provider of video content would soon be signed.
“A lot of people are already using many of these content services on their own, but what we see is that when we are packaging these services inside our plan, the adoption is much greater,” he said.
“What is important is that we are able to choose those partners that … bring in good value for our customers. We (don’t just) want to fill up with content, but what we really want is to get things that our customers will appreciate, and we will be working on that for the next year.”
The telco has also significantly increased its retail footprint, signing on 8000 new prepaid sales outlets — an increase of 40 per cent from a year ago — and opening 30 new Vodafone-branded retail stores in the last three months of 2014.
The mobile operator has also signed sales partnerships with Dick Smith and Telechoice to fill out its retail presence in areas where its self-branded stores are not located
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