Today during Vodafone’s briefing to outline the company’s full year performance for the twelve months ending 31 December, 2019 they announced their readiness for 5G.
Vodafone are set to switch on its first 5G towers “within weeks” and are pushing ahead with plans for more throughout the year. Not only that but they are also looking to move on with their merger with TPG following the Federal Court’s ruling a couple of weeks ago.
The new merger is set to help move its 5G plans forward a lot faster but insists it will not turn on 5G towers for the sake of turning on towers, instead focusing on the quality of the network and customer service:
These will be the first of over 650 5G sites in progress. Several thousand sites are to be built over the coming years, with the merger to enable acceleration.VHA CEO Iñaki Berroeta
2019 saw Vodafone record a 6.9 percent YoY EBITDA growth, even with the Federal Court case and Huawei’s absence from the 5G market hanging over its head.
High customer satisfaction among existing customers was a continued priority, and we achieved the highest Net Promoter Score of the mobile network operators and a complaints rate less than half the industry average.
In 2020, we look forward to implementing the merger, subject to any ACCC appeal and further approvals, and delivering benefits to both VHA and TPG/iiNet customers.
The merged company will have a strong balance sheet, significantly improved spectrum and transmission assets.
Overall their post-paid mobile base remained steady which they accredit to their “strong network and value propositions”. The prepaid section did not fare well though after they made a decision not to target marginally profitable or unprofitable prepaid channels.
Their nbn base more than tripled last year with nearly half of its customers connecting to the 100 speed-tier.
Overall Vodafone was pleased with its results across all platforms in 2019. Let’s see how it goes in 2020 with TPG by its side.
For you Vodafone customers out there are you pleased with its performance in 2019?
I had to move away from Vodafone’s mobile service a few months ago due to the slowness of speed around Central (Sydney) and in the inner west suburb where I live. Other places the speed was fine but in the two areas I really needed it, the speed was abysmal. I’d been with Vodafone for a few years but switched over to a Telstra reseller and haven’t had any problems since.