(Alliance News) - Vodafone Group PLC on Wednesday said it is building customer relationships in its core connectivity products, through innovation in digital services.
The FTSE 100-listed telecommunications company told a virtual investor briefing on digital services that it has improved its net promoter score following a series of initiatives conducted over the last three years. This has contributed to systematic reductions in mobile contract churn and increasing fixed connectivity customers.
Vodafone said it now has over 50 million customers subscribing to a digital service as it is focused on the development of its positions in consumer internet-of-things, Vodafone TV, home services, device lifecycle services, and loyalty applications.
Turning to its financial services, Vodafone said its business in Africa has grown to 58 million customers since formation in 2007 as a money transfer service. Vodafone said its African FinTech business has significant growth opportunities through "penetration growth in existing markets", expanding into new markets, and scaling new products, including the recent launch of the VodaPay 'super-app' in South Africa.
"Digital services have a direct and immediate impact on customer loyalty, net promoter scores and distribution efficiency. This leads to more valuable relationships with our customers across Europe and Africa," explained Alex Froment-Curtil, Vodafone chief commercial officer.
"Further deepening our customer relationships is the foundation to delivering our medium-term financial ambitions to grow revenue in both Europe and Africa, mid-single digit earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization after leases growth and to improve our return on capital," added Froment-Curtil.
In addition, Vodafone said that, together with Benu Networks, Casa Systems, Cisco Systems Inc and Nokia Corp, it has tested a system that will make it quicker and easier to deliver faster fixed broadband services across Europe.
The companies applied a new open architecture to the broadband network gateway - a critical component for connecting multiple users to the internet - to enable it to work using separate software and hardware from multiple vendors.
"We are already driving a more diverse and open mobile ecosystem with Open RAN, and now we are targeting fixed broadband. As an industry, and with government support, we owe it to people with no or slow internet access to quicken the rollout of new capabilities on fast, fixed broadband," said Johan Wibergh, chief technology officer for Vodafone.
Vodafone shares were trading 0.3% lower in London on Wednesday at 114.66 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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