Vodafone loses revenue and landline customers

The German Vodafone subsidiary lost revenue in the quarter of the financial year ending 2024 and continues to lose customers in the fixed network. While revenue in the Vodafone Group increased overall, it declined in the important German market. The company sees the main reason for this in the loss of customers caused by legal changes in the billing of cable connections with ancillary residential costs.

According to a company statement, Vodafone Germany generated revenue of just under EUR 3.1 billion in the final quarter of 2024 (-7.6%), of which EUR 2.7 billion was service revenue from mobile and fixed-network services (-6.4%). Revenues in the fixed-line and mobile sectors developed differently. While Vodafone recorded a decline in mobile revenues of just one percent, fixed-line revenues fell by over ten percent.

Customer growth in mobile communications

This is also reflected in the customer figures. In the mobile sector, Vodafone Germany reportedly gained 23,000 new contract customers during the quarter. In the fixed network, Vodafone continues to lose customers, but with a loss of 7,000, the migration has slowed down considerably.

Vodafone points to the abolition of the so-called ancillary cost privilege in summer 2024 as the reason for the loss in the fixed-line business. An amendment to the Telecommunications Act removed the possibility for property owners to charge basic fees for the cable connection with the ancillary rental costs.

As a result, millions of households were given the opportunity to cancel their cable connection, which many did in the summer. In the final quarter of 2024, however, the number of TV customers only fell by 66,000 to 8.83 million, the company announced. A year ago, Vodafone still had more than twelve million cable TV customers in Germany; recently, Vodafone has lost a massive number of customers.

Vodafone considers the upheaval caused by the change in the law to be largely complete. Head of Germany Marcel de Groot said that the decline in TV customers had "almost stopped". By the end of the year, the company had been able to retain just under half of the existing TV customers affected by the changes, which was in line with expectations.

Turnaround in Germany

According to Vodafone, the ongoing investments for a turnaround will have a negative impact on the operating result of the German subsidiary. As usual, Vodafone has not published the operating results of the national companies. Meanwhile, the ongoing job cuts are progressing well, according to reports from London. The company announced global job cuts in May 2023, including 1,300 in Germany. Just under a year later, Vodafone has cut a further 1,800 jobs in Germany.

Meanwhile, the Vodafone Group has sold its Italian subsidiary to Swisscom, which intends to merge Vodafone Italia with its subsidiary Fastweb. The merger of Vodafone and Three in the UK market has now also been given the green light by the regulatory authorities.

(vbr)