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back to article Vodafone: Soz investors, we wrote down £6.6 BEELLION on Euro ops

Vodafone’s disappointing results pulled down the share price today after it announced a whopping £6.6bn writedown of its Europe operations. The impairment charges – which resulted in a group revenue slippage of 1.9 per cent from £43.8bn to £43.6bn – were due to competition and regulatory changes in Europe, said the telco. We …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Plus ca change

    Hold a mo, isn't this the same Vodafone that squeezed out a circa £6bn writedown same time last year? And the same Vodafone that cropped off a £2bn writedown iin 2010? And the same Vodafone that puffed on a £6bn writedown in 2009. And the same Vodafone that laid a perfectly formed £12bn writedown in 2008? And the same Vodafone that rolled out a stonking £28bn writedown in 2006?

    Has nobody noticed a trend here?

    And the curious thing is that the write offs listed are slightly above current market capitalisation, suggesting that over the medium term the board have managed to waste more than they've made.

    Far from "offering optimism for improvement", the simple fact that this is Vodafone, with its useless, overpaid, city grandee board means it is poised for further writedowns. Clara Furse will fit right in.

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    1. Furbian
      Reply Icon

      Re: Plus ca change

      Agreed, and looking at the share price, I got out just after the Verizon deal was completed, it's continually heading southwards towards less than £2 (£2.05 today). Even if it did end up at £1.90 I'd still be wary of buying it again. One has to wonder what their management has 'planned', if anything.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Poor network

    Glad I left Vodafone, I found their 3G coverage to be like swiss cheese, lots of holes everywhere... yet their 2G coverage was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised by 3, they had far better 3G coverage even though a lot of their 2G backup is switched off. Vodafone must be relying quite heavily on massive corporate contracts including within the public sector.

    I suspect EE will be similar as they are sharing many cell sites now under the MBNL project.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Poor network

      "Vodafone must be relying quite heavily on massive corporate contracts including within the public sector."

      Maybe, but I doubt it. Most mass subscriber industries (insurance, energy, telecoms) operate on continuing churn, mostly driven by dissatisfied customers. You may leave Voda, but somebody else is joining them because they're pissed off with O2, and so on.

      In financial terms it never pays to reward loyalty, because if you keep the best deals for your "oldest" customers, you can't offer the best deals to acquire new customers, so your business shrinks.

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