We expanded Vodafone Red – our customer proposition offering unlimited calls and texts with generous data allowances – to 14 markets.
By March 2014 we reached 20 markets.
We launched M-Pesa, our money-transfer service in India. The initial launch included over 8,000 agents in the eastern areas of India, covering around 220 million people, and we have expanded the service throughout the year.
We announced plans to acquire Kabel Deutschland, Germany’s largest cable operator, for €10.7 billion (£9.1 billion). This helps us create a leading unified communications operator in Germany offering combined fixed and mobile services.
The transaction closed in October 2013.
We launched 4G in two more markets – the UK and the Netherlands. In the UK the service includes Sky Sports or Spotify.
We also launched 4G in Australia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Malta and Spain during the year.
We announced an agreement to sell our 45% interest in Verizon Wireless to Verizon for US$130 billion (£79 billion). This was the second largest corporate deal in history when it completed on 21 February 2014.
As part of this transaction we increased our ownership of Vodafone Italy from 77% to 100%.
We announced details of our Project Spring strategy to increase our organic investment over two years to deliver network and service differentiation compared to our competitors.
Two Instant Networks, which each pack into four cases, were deployed 24 hours after Typhoon Haiyan, to establish a temporary replacement mobile network where permanent infrastructure was destroyed. In just 29 days, it enabled people to send over 1.4 million texts and make over 443,200 calls.
The Vodafone Foundation announced a partnership with Kick4Life in Lesotho, a country where almost 1 in 4 live with HIV/AIDS, to accelerate the number of children being tested and treated for the virus. The initiative aims to get a generation of young people on antiretrovirals via our M-Pesa “Text to Treatment” programme.
We launched our Firsts programme, inspiring people to do something remarkable for the first time using mobile technology. This new global brand engagement strategy will be launching across all our markets in 2014.
We acquired and renewed spectrum in auctions held in India for £1.9 billion to provide customers with enhanced mobile voice and data services.
Following the sale of our interest in Verizon Wireless, we completed the return of US$85 billion (£51 billion) to shareholders – the single largest in history.
We announced plans to acquire Ono, Spain’s largest cable operator, for €7.2 billion (£6.0 billion). This, combined with our fibre deployment, will create a leading unified communications provider in Spain.