Vodafone Australia customers are set to benefit from a $US130...

Vodafone Australia customers are set to benefit from a $US130 billion ($141 billion) deal between US-based Verizon and the UK-based Vodafone Group as proceeds start to flow to operations around the globe.

US mobile giant Verizon announced last week it would buy-out the Vodafone Group’s share in Verizon, ending the UK company’s investment in the US.

Most of the proceeds were expected to flow back to Vodafone Plc shareholders, but the London-based company also announced £6 billion ($10.2 billion) would go towards additional capital expenditure across all of its markets in a three-year spending spree dubbed Project Spring.

‘‘We can confirm that Australia will be one of the markets to benefit from Project Spring, which is incredibly exciting given Vodafone’s already strong spectrum holdings in this market,’’ a spokeswoman for Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) told Fairfax Media.

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VHA's chief executive, Bill Morrow, said he would send an in investment plan to both Vodafone Group and VHA's other parent, Hutchison Telecommunications Australia, for more funding.


"We will put together an even more aggressive investment plan and will make our case as to why this is a good investment and why it is necessary. This would enable us to deliver sooner," he told Fairfax Media, referring to VHA's three-year turnaround plan.

"We plan to completely modernise our IT systems, further funding will enable this to happen sooner than planned."

How much money would be spent in Australia was yet to be determined and depended entirely on the Vodafone Group’s executive team, which was preparing a proposal for the board. Chief executive Vittorio Colao had paid close attention to Australia and spent a week here in late July talking to staff and examining operations, the spokeswoman said.

Mr Colao was drafting a spending proposal for each country as well as global strategies to improve IT platforms and standardising operations across 30 countries.

Vodafone in Australia is half-owned by the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Group following a merger in mid-2009. It has strengthened its ties with Vodafone Group in the past two years after the Hutchison-selected chief executive Nigel Dews was replaced by Mr Morrow last year and the 3 brand previously used by Hutchison was shut down on August 30.

Recently VHA adopted Vodafone’s new "Red" global rebranding strategy and launched new roaming plans that rely on discounts from other Vodafone mobile operators around the world.

Vodafone Australia has already received substantial funding from both its parents to help turn around a company that lost 1 million customers due to a network meltdown in 2010 and 2011 and has not turned a profit since the merger.

Hutchison Telecommunications and Vodafone collectively spent about $1.3 billion on capital expenditure in 2010 and 2011, according to financial records, and were believed to have spent a further $2 billion in 2012. A $3.5 billion loan taken out by VHA in June was also backed by the parents.

Details of Project Spring would not be known until November 12, when the company’s board, chaired by Gerard Kleisterlee, released its half-year results. It has already announced some money would go towards establishing a 4G network across 90 per cent of Vodafone’s five biggest European markets by 2017, and improving 3G capacity in mature markets