Data services
Data revenue
£2,180m
(2007: £1,428m, 2006: £1,098m)
The Group offers a number of products and services to enhance customers’ access to data services. These include services supporting access to the internet via laptops and PCs and access to the internet, music, games and television services through the Vodafone live! portal on customer handsets.
Vodafone live! – Internet on Your Mobile
Two million
“Internet on Your Mobile”
customers
at 31 March 2008
During the 2008 financial year, Vodafone introduced “Internet on Your Mobile”, which offers a combination of easy to use and secure customer browsing, Google search, a tariff for unlimited browsing and integrated services from leading internet brand partners. Customers can now use their mobile to access and update their profile on the social networks of their choice, view or upload YouTube videos from their mobile, buy or sell items on eBay and check locations on Google Maps™. To date, this service has been fully launched in Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland and France. Two million customers were benefiting from this service at 31 March 2008.
The Group has been developing its presence in the converging communications and PC space by signing instant messaging partnerships with Yahoo! and MSN. Instant messaging enables users to communicate to one or more friends through interactive sessions using a dedicated and easy interface. These services are primarily available in the more mature markets, such as Germany Italy, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal and France. Vodafone also partnered with Microsoft to develop a communications service for the PC, presented at the Cebit exhibition in March 2008.
Vodafone live! – music, games, television services
Throughout the 2008 financial year, the Group continued to improve the customer experience for music, games and television offerings available through Vodafone live!.
The full track music downloads service was significantly improved by the launch of a new mobile and PC music player. The service allows Vodafone’s customers to search for music, artists’ pages and previews from a catalogue of more than 750,000 songs, including some of the world’s greatest artists through agreements with Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI, Warner Music and independent record labels. Additionally, Vodafone has exclusively distributed and promoted Madonna’s single “4 minutes” in a number of markets, including the UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Turkey, India and Australia.
Vodafone strengthened its global games portfolio by offering popular titles such as Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 from Konami. The game was launched simultaneously across markets with extensive marketing and advertising through different mediums, including in-console game Vodafone brand advertising. The user access and user experience continues to be improved by embedding a selection of the latest games onto handsets.
Mobile TV is available in 21 controlled and jointly controlled markets with an average of 20 channels offered. Video content is sourced both locally and internationally in order to provide value for money to customers and ensure that the offering reflects the unique culture and attitudes of specific countries. Vodafone has local agreements with broadcasters, such as the BBC, ZDF, RAI, Pro-Sieben, Channel 4 and RTL. Internationally, content is sourced from HBO, Fox, NBC Universal, Warner Brothers, UEFA Champions League, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and MTV. Vodafone now has a monthly average of 850,000 customers subscribing to Mobile TV.
Data roaming
When travelling abroad, roaming allows Vodafone’s customers to use the Group’s services on a mobile network in the country they are visiting. Vodafone continued to improve the simplicity, price predictability and value for money offered to customers for data roaming services. For Vodafone Mobile Connect users, Vodafone complemented the monthly roaming bundle launched in 2005 with a daily roaming tariff, appealing to both the regular and less frequent international travellers alike. At 31 March 2008, the monthly and daily tariff was available in nine of Vodafone’s European markets. Vodafone will continue to support the growth of data roaming services through simple, easy to understand pricing.
Mobile applications
There has been an increasing demand for handheld solutions that allow real time access to email, calendar, address book and other applications. Vodafone Email Plus, Windows Mobile® Email from Vodafone and BlackBerry from Vodafone provide business customers, ranging from small start up companies to multinational corporates, with wireless access to their business and internet based email solutions.
Vodafone Mobile Connect
The Vodafone Mobile Connect offering allows laptop and PC users access to the internet and to business customers’ systems such as email, corporate applications and company intranets via Vodafone Mobile Connect data cards, or Vodafone Mobile Connect USB modems. These are discussed in more detail in Devices.