Vodafone consumer IoT this year
July 21, 2017
Vodafone has committed to launching consumer IoT this autumn, with the solution being trialled by the Group’s CEO Vittorio Colao as its Q1 results were revealed.
The operator first promised a consumer IoT play last November. Vodafone will be relying on the experience of its enterprise IoT solution, which registered a 15.1 per cent year-on-year increase in revenues during the three months to June.
Across all business units, Vodafone saw sales fall 3.3 per cent to €11.47 billion on a reported basis due to negative forex movements and the deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands following its joint venture with Liberty Global’s Ziggo.
Vodafone’s TV base was hit by losses in Spain in the quarter, but it claimed success from its fixed-mobile convergent offerings. Vodafone overall had 9.6 million TV homes in Europe at the end of June, or 13.5 million including the VodafoneZiggo joint venture in the Netherlands.
It had 3.8 million converged homes – meaning homes that took both fixed and mobile services, up 700,000 year-on-year. Including VodafoneZiggo, the number was 4.4 million.
By comparison, Vodafone had 16.8 million broadband customers in Europe at the end of June, and 50.1 million 4G mobile customers.
In Spain, Vodafone’s TV base fell by 24,000 which the company attributed in part to a temporary delay in being able to offer the service to its wholesale footprint under its agreement with Telefónica. Other factors included disconnections following the end of the football season.
Vodafone One, the company’s converged fixed, mobile and TV offering in Spain, reached 2.4 million homes at the end of June, up 63,000. The company also launched a basic convergent offering via its low-cost brand Lowi in May.
Vodafone’s TV base in Germany was stable at 7.7 million. The company’s GigaKombi convergent offering sighed up 90,000 households during the quarter, taking the total converged homes to 500,000. It said it added 100,000 broadband customers in the quarter in Germany, including 65,000 on cable.
Vodafone Portugal reported that its OTT TV service was now seen by 500,000 customers, boosted by a stronger programming offer including Sporting TV and new channels from AMC.