19 May 2010

More new customers reported by Vodafone NZ

11:05 am on 19 May 2010

Vodafone New Zealand attracted 11,000 new customers in the first three months of the year.

According to accounts filed by Vodafone Group to the London stock exchange, the global mobile company had just over 2.5 million customers in New Zealand at 31 March.

Vodafone had claimed a "huge influx" of customers from Telecom during the period, following a string of failures on Telecom's XT network.

However, Forsyth Bar telecommunications analyst Guy Hallwright says he had expected Vodafone to attract more customers.

Some 70% of Vodafone customers in New Zealand use pre-pay.

Vodafone Group made a pre-tax profit of 8.7 billion pounds in the year to March.

That's more than double the previous year's results, due to strong growth in Asia and Africa.

Vodafone now has 341 million customers worldwide.