VOD Ireland to Deploy WLAN

DUBLIN -- Vodafone Ireland acquired 25,000 new customers (8,000 post pay and 17,000 pre pay) in the quarter, bringing its total customer base to 1.765 million. This represents the addition of over 61,000 new customers in the past year. Particularly robust growth in the contract customer base strongly positions the company as Full Mobile Number Portability becomes available in Ireland.

ARPU for pre pay customers grew to €345, up from €308 in the same period last year. For post pay customers, the yearly ARPU increased to €1,098 up from €1,067 in the same period last year. Blended ARPU was €565 up from €523 in the same period last year. Vodafone Ireland's voice and data usage levels continue to lead the Group's European operations.

MTR Reduction
Earlier this year Vodafone reduced its peak mobile termination rates by 13%. Vodafone today announced its plans to introduce a further mobile termination rate reduction in 2004. This reduction on the average termination rate of almost CPI minus 10%, means that since 2000, Vodafone will have reduced mobile termination rates by almost 30%, or greater than 50% in real terms. Vodafone s new 2003 rates (effective since June) positioned Vodafone Ireland s MTR s as amongst the lowest in Europe.

Wireless LAN
The company also made known today its intention to deploy a network of WLAN hotpots at key locations in Ireland later this year, to coincide with the launch of Mobile Office release 2 - its suite of voice and data services for business customers. Delivering speeds of up to 500Kbts, Vodafone plans to make the service available in hotels, golf clubs, sports grounds and stations. Vodafone will be the only operator in Ireland offering a full portfolio of access bearers (HSD/GPRS/3G/WLAN), that offer customers the greatest choice of connectivity options.

Commenting on Vodafone Ireland's performance, Gerry Fahy, Strategy and Business Planning Director, Vodafone Ireland, said: "The figures announced today emphasise Vodafone's strong position in the Irish marketplace and reflect a very successful quarter. In particular, the growth in ARPU reflects increased usage of MMS, ringtones and other data services by our customers. These behaviours are particularly evident in our new Vodafone live! customers and usage of key services, especially gaming, continues to outstrip our expectations.

"This quarter saw a continuing programme of pricing innovation, with the introduction of flat rate roaming tariffs, an 8 cent text rate and savings of up to 30% on voice calls for prepay customer s with our "Friends for less" tariff. These rates, coupled with our recent announcements about mobile termination charges, reflect Vodafone s ongoing strategy of delivering the best value to our customers.

"In the period from April to end-June, we were the first Irish operator to open a 3G network. We introduced a series of compelling data propositions to our business customers under the Mobile Office suite of services, the hero product of which - Mobile Connect Card, has been received extremely well by our customer base. Under the Mobile Office umbrella we also began a series of Business Partnership programmes with HP Centres of Excellence and Cisco System Integrators.

"The coming six months will be equally vibrant, and we look forward to the opportunity of Full Mobile Number Portability. As the largest investor in telecoms infrastructure in Ireland, we believe that constant reinvestment and expansion of our network contributes to our market leadership and underpins our success in acquiring high-value contract customers over the past quarter. We have invested over €10 million in our FMNP roll-out and we believe that our level of overall investment ensures we are not only in a strong position to retain our customer base, but also places us in the strongest position to acquire customers from other networks. Amongst other things, the next six months will see the introduction of an All island tariff, new offerings under our Mobile Office umbrella, a suite of weekend promotional rates and engaging new services for our growing Vodafone live! customer base".

Vodafone Ireland