The country's biggest mobile phone services provider, Vodafone, has announced that it is to compete with Eircom in providing fixed line telephone services and broadband in the home.
From today and whether a household has a landline or not, Vodafone is offering a broadband service for €49 a month. This includes connection, line rental, broadband up to 2MB, local and national landline calls and unlimited calls to three Vodafone numbers.
'We plan to bring the successes we have had in mobile telecoms into the fixed market and provide a one-stop-shop for new and existing customers,' commented Charles Butterworth, Vodafone Ireland's CEO.
Vodafone Ireland said its mobile phone customers numbers rose by 87,500 in the year to the end of March 2008. The purchase of Perlico added another 62,500 customers, bringing its total base to 2.33 million.
Vodafone said its total voice minutes in the quarter ended March 2008 increased by 9.3% to 1,551 million from 1,420 million the same time last year. Text usage increased by 22.1% with total texts growing to 936 million from 767 million the same time last year.
Average revenue per user decreased by 1.3% to €44 from €44.6.
Vodafone also said that its total mobile broadband base reached 75,000 by the end of March, up from 20,000 the same time last year.
Meanwhile, Vodafone Ireland's parent group has reported underlying pre-tax profits of £8.93 billion sterling for the year to the end of March, up 2% on the previous year, as it increased its customer base in emerging markets across Asia and Africa.
Vodafone had posted a net loss of £5.426 billion in 2006-07 owing to exceptional losses linked largely to its acquisition of German telecoms group Mannesmann in 2000. Revenues jumped by 14.1% to £35.48 billion.
The group also said that its chief executive Arun Sarin would step down at the end of July. Mr Sarin leaves after five years in charge.
Sarin has not had an easy ride at the telecommunications giant, as he endured a rocky patch in 2006 when nearly 10% of shareholders voted against his re-election.
Since then he has led Vodafone to strong revenue growth in fast-growing markets such as India and Turkey. In January, the firm revealed that most of its clients were now outside western Europe.
Sarin also helped steer the firm through the wreckage of the dotcom crash in 2000 and has boosted its customer base from 120 million to 260 million globally.
Vodafone shares were down 1.7% to 160.5p in London this evening.
