Following a period of worldwide expansion which began in 1999, in the 2010s Vodafone entered a period of retrenchment and simplification of its operations.
On 23 September 2016, Vodafone extended its activities to Cameroon by signing a partnership with Afrimax, a 4G-LTE telecommunications operator in Africa. Vodafone Cameroon Launched a "Youth Program" in the Universities to support and encourage the Cameroonian students. The partnership ceased to operate in September 2017 following the withdrawal of its licence by the government.
In November 1998, the Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name Click GSM, and was rebranded to Vodafone in 2002.
On 8 November 2006, the company announced a deal with Telecom Egypt, resulting in further co-operation in the Egyptian market and increasing its stake in Vodafone Egypt. After the deal, Vodafone Egypt was 55% owned by the group, while the remaining 45% was owned by Telecom Egypt.
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On 29 January 2020, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and the Vodafone Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the sale of Vodafone's entire 55 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt to STC. With the sale, Vodafone would have exited the Egyptian market as a telecom operator. Telecom Egypt had said that it had no plans to sell its 45% stake. However, on 21 December 2020, Vodafone announced that it had failed to reach an agreement with STC regarding the sale.
In 2022, Vodafone sold its shares in Vodafone Egypt to its majority-owned African arm Vodacom.
Ghana
On 3 July 2008, Vodafone agreed to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom for $900 million. The acquisition was consummated on 17 August 2008. The same group-led consortium won the second fixed-line licence in Qatar on 15 September 2008.
On 15 April 2009, Ghana Telecom, along with its mobile subsidiary OneTouch, was rebranded as Vodafone Ghana.
In February 2023, Vodafone Group has concluded the sale of its 70% stake in Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Group in a bid to streamline its African portfolio, thus exiting the Ghanaian market.
Libya
On 24 February 2010, the group signed a partner network agreement with the second-largest operator in Libya, al Madar.
South Africa
On 3 November 2004, the company announced that its South African affiliate Vodacom had agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone live! and partner agreements, to its local market.
In November 2005, Vodafone announced that it was in exclusive talks to buy a 15% stake of VenFin in Vodacom Group, reaching agreement the following day. Vodafone and Telkom then had a 50% stake each in Vodacom. Vodafone now owns 57.5% of Vodacom after purchasing a 15% stake from Telkom.
On 9 October 2008, the company offered to acquire an additional 15% stake in Vodacom Group from Telkom. The finalised details of the agreement were announced on 6 November 2008. The agreement called for Telkom to sell 15 per cent of its 50 per cent stake in Vodacom to the group, and demerge the other 35 per cent to its shareholders. Meanwhile, Vodafone agreed to make Vodacom its exclusive sub-Saharan Africa investment vehicle, as well as continuing to maintain the visibility of the Vodacom brand. The transaction closed in May/June 2009.
On 18 May 2009, Vodacom entered the JSE Limited stock exchange in South Africa after Vodafone increased its stake by 15% to 65% to take a majority holding, despite disputes by local trade unions.
In April 2011, Vodacom rebranded with the Vodafone logo.
Bahrain
In December 2003, Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC), enabling cooperation in Bahrain and leading to the branding of the Bahraini network as MTC-Vodafone. MTC later rebranded regionally as Zain, and the Bahraini operation subsequently became Zain Bahrain. As part of the early partnership structure, Vodafone held a 6.25% minority stake in Zain Bahrain; however, in May 2014 Vodafone sold its entire 6.25% stake to Zain Group for US$12.5 million, fully ending its equity involvement in the company.
Oman
In January 2021, Vodafone obtained a licence to establish and operate public telecommunications services in Oman. In September 2021 Vodafone in Oman signed an agreement with Ericsson to deploy, operate and maintain 4G and 5G core and radio access (RAN) greenfield network and an agreement with Netcracker Technology to deploy Netcracker Digital BSS. Vodafone will be the third operator in the Sultanate of Oman.
Qatar
In December 2007, a Vodafone Group-led consortium was awarded the second mobile phone licence in Qatar under the name "Vodafone Qatar". Vodafone Qatar is located at QSTP, the Qatar Science & Technology Park. Commercial operations officially began on 1 March 2009. In February 2018 Vodafone Europe agreed to sell their stake in the Qatar joint venture.
On 25 November 2019, Vodafone in collaboration with Inseego Corp. introduced the 5G MiFi M1100 in Qatar. It was the first commercially available 5G mobile hotspot in the region.
United Arab Emirates
On 28 January 2009, the group announced a partner network agreement with Du, the second-largest operator in the United Arab Emirates. The agreement involved co-operation on international clients, handset procurement, mobile broadband etc.
The Americas
Canada
Vodafone's network partner in Canada was Rogers Wireless but has since changed to Telus.
Chile
On 11 May 2008, Vodafone sealed a trade agreement with the Chilean Entel, in which Entel has access to the equipment and international services of Vodafone, and Vodafone will be one of the trademarks of Entel for the wireless business. This step will give the Vodafone brand access to a market of over 15 million people, currently divided between two companies: Telefonica Movistar and Entel.
Brazil
In August 2013, Vodafone has started the MVNO operation in Brazil, as a corporative M2M operator.
United States
In the United States, Vodafone previously owned 45% of Verizon Wireless in a joint venture with Verizon Communications, the country's largest mobile carrier. Vodafone branding was not used, however, as the CDMA network was not compatible with the GSM 900/1800 MHz standard used by Vodafone's other networks and as Vodafone did not have management control over Verizon Wireless. On 2 September 2013 Vodafone announced the sale of its stake to Verizon Communications for around $130 billion. In 2004, Vodafone made an unsuccessful bid for the entirety of AT&T Wireless; however, Cingular Wireless, at the time a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth (both now part of AT&T Inc.), outbid Vodafone and took control of AT&T Wireless (the combined wireless carrier is now AT&T Mobility).
In 2013, Vodafone was considered for acquisition by US-based AT&T. Ultimately, the deal did not move forward.
India
On 28 October 2005, the company announced the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in India's Bharti Enterprises, which operated the largest mobile phone network in India under the brand name Airtel. Then on 11 February 2007, the Company agreed to acquire a controlling interest of 67% in Hutch Essar for US$11.1 billion. At the same time, it agreed to sell back 5.6% of its Airtel stake to the Mittals; Vodafone would retain a 4.4% stake in Airtel. On 21 September 2007, Hutch was rebranded to Vodafone India. In May 2011, Vodafone Group Plc bought the remaining shares of Vodafone Essar from Essar Group Ltd for $5 billion. In October 2013, it was reported by Reuters that Vodafone planned to invest as much as $2 billion (£1.2 billion) to buy out minority shareholders in Vodafone India.
By late January 2017, Vodafone Group's unit in India and Idea Cellular Ltd were in preliminary talks to merge. On 20 March 2017, Vodafone announced that it was merging its Indian business with Idea, India's third-largest network, to create the country's third-largest operator with almost 270 million customers, accounting for 16% of the Indian cellphone market. Vodafone would own 45.1 per cent of the new operator and Idea's parent company, the Aditya Birla Group, 26 per cent. The deal valued Vodafone India at the equivalent of $12.6 billion and Idea Cellular at the equivalent of $11.02 billion. The deal would enable Vodafone to move its Indian subsidiary off its balance sheet, cutting the British group's net debt by the equivalent of almost $8.25 billion. The Telecom ministry (DoT) cleared the Vodafone–Idea merger on 9 July 2018. On 31 August 2018, Vodafone Idea became a legal entity and the largest telecom service provider in India. On 7 September 2020, Vodafone Idea unveiled its new brand identity, 'Vi' which involves the integration of the company's separate brands 'Vodafone' and 'Idea' into one unified brand.
Japan
In 1999, J-Phone launched the J-sky mobile Internet service in response to DoCoMo's i-Mode service. It became Japan's third-largest mobile operator and was the first one to introduce camera phones in Japan. Vodafone then went on to acquire J-phone. In December 2002 J-Phone's 3G network went live. On 1 October 2003, J-Phone became 'Vodafone Japan', and J-Phone's mobile internet service J-Sky became Vodafone Live!. On 17 March 2006, Vodafone announced an agreement to sell all its interest in Vodafone Japan to SoftBank for £8.9 billion, of which £6.8 billion would be received in cash upon completion of the deal. In October 2006, SoftBank changed Vodafone Japan's name to 'SoftBank Mobile'. In November 2010, Vodafone divested its remaining SoftBank shares.
Other Asia
On 3 November 2003, Singapore became a part of the community as M1 was signed as partner network. Then in April 2005, SmarTone changed the name of its brand to 'SmarTone-Vodafone', after both companies signed a Partner Network Agreement. In January 2006, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka were added to the Vodafone footprint as Vodafone Group signed a partner network agreement with Telekom Malaysia.
On 6 February 2007, along with the partnership with Digicel Caribbean (see below), Samoa was added as a Partner Market. On 6 February 2007, Vodafone Group signed a three-year partnership agreement with Digicel Group. The agreement, which included Digicel's operation in Samoa, would result in new roaming capabilities.
On 10 February 2008, Vodafone announced the launch of M-Paisa mobile money transfer service on Roshan's (Afghanistan's largest GSM operator) network.
dtac in Thailand was signed as a partner network of the Group on 25 March 2009.
Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan was signed as a partner network on 12 November 2009.
In September 2011, it was announced that Vodafone and Smartone would not renew their partnership in the Hong Kong market. Vodafone instead entered into an agreement with Hutchison Telecom, who operate the 3 brand. In the same year, M1 also ended their partnership in Singapore.
In February 2013, Vodafone together with China Mobile participated in bidding for one of the two newly opened Myanmar Mobile licences.
At the beginning of September 2014, the Vietnamese mobile operator Vinaphone signed a strategic co-operation agreement with Vodafone.
Europe
Vodafone Magyarország Zrt ("Vodafone Hungary") was formed as a subsidiary company in July 1999, although Vodafone has since sold its shares in the company. The acquisition of Mannesmann AG, completed on 12 April 2000, creating subsidiaries in Germany and Italy, and increased the Group's indirect holding in SFR. The Vodafone brand in Italy was introduced as Omnitel Vodafone in 2001, which became Vodafone Omnitel in 2002; finally the current name Vodafone Italy was introduced in 2003, dropping Omnitel altogether.
In 2001, the company acquired Eircell, the largest wireless communications company in Ireland, from Eircom. Eircell was subsequently rebranded as Vodafone Ireland. In February 2002, Radiolinja of Finland joined Vodafone as a partner network. Later in December 2002, the Vodafone brand was introduced in the Estonian market following the signing of a Partner Network Agreement with the Estonian subsidiary of Radiolinja. Radiolinja's Finnish service was rebranded as Elisa in April 2004 following its parent company Elisa Corporation's decision to unify all consumer-facing brands under a single name; this was followed by Radiolinja's Estonian service in February 2005, in anticipation of the later juridical merger with Uninet.
In January 2003, the company signed a group-wide partner agreement with mobilkom Austria and as a result Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia were added to the community. In April 2003, Og Vodafone was introduced in the Icelandic market. On 21 July 2003, Lithuania was added to the community, with the signing of a Partner Network Agreement with Bitė.
In February 2004, Vodafone signed Partner Network Agreements with Luxembourg's LuxGSM, and with Cyta in Cyprus. Cyta agreed to rename its mobile phone operations to Cytamobile-Vodafone. In April 2004, the company acquired a British airtime provider, Singlepoint, for £405m from John Caudwell's Caudwell Group, adding approximately 1.5 million customers and sites in Stoke-on-Trent to existing sites in Newbury (HQ), Birmingham, Warrington and Banbury. In November 2004, Vodafone introduced 3G services into Europe.
In June 2005, the Company bought the Czech mobile operator Oskar which was rebranded as Oskar-Vodafone.
On 28 October 2005, Connex in Romania was rebranded as Connex-Vodafone, and on 31 October 2005, the company reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Sweden to Telenor for approximately €1 billion. After the sale, Vodafone Sweden became a partner network.
In December 2005, Vodafone won a bid to buy Turkey's second-largest mobile phone company, Telsim, for US$4.5 billion. Early in January 2007, Telsim in Turkey adopted Vodafone dual branding as Telsim Vodafone, and on 1 April 2007, became Vodafone Turkey. In addition, Vodafone Turkey also provides service in Northern Cyprus.
In 2006, the Company rebranded its Stoke-on-Trent site to Stoke Premier Centre, a "centre of expertise" for the company dealing with customer care for its higher-value customers, technical support, sales and credit control. On 22 February 2006, the company announced that it was extending its footprint to Bulgaria with the signing of Partner Network Agreement with Mobiltel, which is part of the mobilkom Austria group.
In April 2006, the company announced that it had signed an extension to its Partner Network Agreement with Bitė Group, enabling its Latvian subsidiary Bite Latvija to become the latest member of Vodafone's global partner community. On 30 May 2006, Vodafone announced the then-biggest loss in British corporate history (£14.9 billion), and that they planned to cut 400 jobs; it reported one-off costs of £23.5 billion due to the revaluation of its Mannesmann subsidiary. On 24 July 2006, the head of Vodafone Europe, Bill Morrow, quit unexpectedly, and on 25 August 2006, the company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Belgium's Proximus for €2 billion. After the deal, Proximus remained part of the community as a Partner Network.
On 5 October 2006, Vodafone announced the first single-brand partnership with Og Vodafone which would operate under the name Vodafone Iceland, and on 19 December 2006, the company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Switzerland's Swisscom for CHF4.25 billion (£1.8 billion). After the deal, Swisscom would still be part of the community as a Partner Network. In December 2006, the Company completed the acquisition of Aspective, an enterprise applications systems integrator in the UK, signalling Vodafone's intent to grow a significant presence and revenues in the information and communication technologies (ICT) marketplace.
On 1 May 2007, Vodafone added Jersey and Guernsey to the community, as Airtel was signed as Partner Network in both crown dependencies. In June 2007, Vodafone UK began optimising web pages accessed through Vodafone Live!, which was criticised by The Register for interfering with mobile commerce websites. On 1 August 2007, Vodafone Portugal launched Vodafone Messenger, a service with Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. At the end of 2007, Vodafone Germany was ranked 6th in Europe by subscriber numbers, whilst its Italian operation was listed as 10th. Vodafone UK was ranked 13th, whilst Spain was listed in 16th place.
On 17 April 2008, Vodafone extended its footprint to Serbia as Vip mobile was added to the community as a Partner Network, and on 20 May 2008, the Company added VIP Operator as a Partner Network, thereby extending their global presence to North Macedonia.
On 30 October 2008, the company announced a strategic, non-equity partnership with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) group of Russia. The agreement added Russia, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to the group's global presence.
On 20 March 2009, it was announced that the group's Luxembourg partner has been changed: the agreement with LuxGSM was not renewed in favour of Tango, the Luxembourg unit of another partner network, Belgacom of Belgium.
On 22 July 2009, Nar Mobile in Azerbaijan was signed as a partner network.
On 4 April 2011, Vodafone sold its 44% stake in SFR, the second-largest operator in France, to Vivendi for €7.95 billion.
In March 2013, the Spanish operations of Vodafone signed an agreement with Orange S.A. to co-invest €1 billion in the expansion of Spain's fibre-optic cable broadband network, which would enable Vodafone to reach an additional 6 million customers in Spain by 2017.In March 2013, the Spanish operations of Vodafone signed an agreement with Orange S.A. to co-invest €1 billion in the expansion of Spain's fibre-optic cable broadband network, which would enable Vodafone to reach an additional 6 million customers in Spain by 2017. On 24 June 2013, Vodafone announced it would be buying German cable company Kabel Deutschland. The takeover was valued at €7.7 billion, and was recommended over the bid of rival Liberty Global. In February 2014, Vodafone made an offer to acquire Spain's largest cable operator, ONO, for total consideration, including associated net debt acquired, of €7.2 billion.
In October 2015, Russia's Mobile TeleSystems and Vodafone expanded their 2008 strategic partnership; this resulted in the rebranding of MTS Ukraine to Vodafone Ukraine.
On 31 December 2016, Vodafone Group's Dutch operations merged with Liberty Global's Ziggo brand, creating VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V.
Consolidation period since 2019
Since 2019, Vodafone has entered into a period of consolidation of its European business, characterised mainly by sales of parts of its business, and the spinning off of some of its assets into separate companies. In 2019, Vodafone sold its stake in Vodafone Malta to Monaco Telecom. Also in 2019, Vodafone Group created a legally separate organisation comprising its European mobile towers. At the same time it was reported that the mobile towers business could be valued at about £10 billion. The mobile towers business was named Vantage Towers on 24 July 2020. Vantage Towers is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany, with towers infrastructure in Germany, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Italy and Ireland comprising a total of 68,000 towers.
Products and services
In October 2009, it launched Vodafone 360, a new internet service for the mobile, PC and Mac. This was discontinued in December 2011 after disappointing hardware sales. This was after the Director of Internet Services resigned in September 2010 tweeting "5 days before I leave Vodafone. Freedom beckons." In February 2010, Vodafone launched the world's cheapest mobile phone known as Vodafone 150, intended to sell for below $15 (£10) in the developing world. It was initially launched in India, Turkey and eight African countries including Lesotho, Kenya and Ghana.
Mobile money transfer services
In March 2007, Safaricom, which is part owned by Vodafone and the leading mobile communication provider in Kenya, launched mobile payment software developed by Vodafone.
By February 2008, the M-PESA money transfer system in Kenya had gained 1.6 million customers. By 2011 there were fourteen million M-Pesa accounts by which held 40 per cent of the country's savings. Following M-PESA's success in Kenya, Vodafone announced that it was to extend the service to Afghanistan. The service here was launched on the Roshan network under the brand M-Paisa with a different focus to the Kenyan service. M-Paisa was targeted as a vehicle for microfinance institutions' (MFI) loan disbursements and repayments, alongside business-to-business applications such as salary disbursement. The Afghanistan launch was followed in April 2008 by the announcement of further a further launch of M-PESA in Tanzania, South Africa and India.
In February 2012, Vodafone announced a worldwide partnership with Visa.
Health services
In November 2009, Vodafone announced the creation of a new business unit focused on the emerging market supplying mobile communications and network technologies to healthcare. One of its early success stories is with the Novartis-led "SMS for Life" project in Tanzania, for which Vodafone developed and deployed a text-message based system that enables all the country's 4,600 public health facilities to report their levels of anti-malarial medications so that stock level data can be viewed centrally in real-time, enabling timely re-supply of stock. During the SMS for Life pilot, which covered 129 health facilities over six months, stock-outs dropped from 26% to 0.8%, saving thousands of lives.
Vodafone Foundation
Vodafone Foundation is a recognised charity which supports and initiates projects which use mobile technology to benefit the vulnerable, using the slogan "Connecting for Good". They often work in collaboration with other charitable groups. Below are some examples of their initiatives:
DreamLab, a volunteer computing mobile app developed in cooperation with Imperial College London and used to research on cancer, COVID-19, and other diseases
TECSOS – mobile phones have been adapted to allow victims of domestic violence to activate immediate contact with the emergency services if they are in danger
Paediatric Epilepsy Remote Monitoring System – a monitoring system that allows physicians to remotely make patient observations
Safe Taxi System – an initiative in Portugal that consists of technology that taxi drivers can use to alert police if they are in danger of being assaulted
Learning with Vodafone Solution – technology that allows teachers in India to use graphical and multi-media content to enhance their teaching
The World of Difference programme – successful applicants choose charities for which they work either full-time for two months or part-time for four months (minimum 15 hours a week). The charities are provided with £2,500, with each winner receiving the balance as a salary after NI and tax have been paid.
