Vodafone Australia Looking for Buyers?

scotty on 16/03/2012 - 14:42

Saw it on The Australian. Vodafone's Australian operation put on the market:

THE owners of embattled telco Vodafone Australia are looking for buyers, industry sources say, with an abbreviated information memorandum circulating among potential purchasers in Europe and Asia.

Basically,

  • Vodafone lost $336 million in 2011 and shed 554,000 customers.
  • Vodafone needs more capital to continue operation, renewing spectrum licenses, etc.
  • China Telecom is one potential buyer of Vodafone Australia

If you are more forgiving to their network performance and customer supports, Vodafone has probably the best mobile phone contract deals out there (just look at past Vodafone deals). I guess they pretty much have to put out good deals, do upgrades to 850MHz, and recently their Network Guarantee, as many have been burnt before and would never go back again.

Now, IF China Telecom buys Vodafone Australia, what would be the implications?

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Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 16/03/2012 - 15:01

    Interesting find.

    Huawei would probably provide the network hardware for starters.

    I wonder where the call centres would be located?

    • Austin 316 on 16/03/2012 - 15:58

      I can assure you it won't be India.

    • mini2 on 18/03/2012 - 21:49

      Not likely given Huawei is supplying 4G infrastructure to Optus.

  • slow on 16/03/2012 - 15:11
    +14

    How much is it? Is it a bargain?

  • grog on 16/03/2012 - 16:02

    Very strange, Voda was at one time the largest mobile phone company in the world, HQ based in europe i think.

    This does not seem right unless voda aust is a standalone company?

    hmmm

    • zambuck on 17/03/2012 - 13:06

      Vodafone Australia used to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Vodafone in the UK, which is the publicly traded company. I don't know exactly what the change in corporate structure was when they merged with Three to become Vodafone Hutchison Australia, which is what they are today.

      A number of years ago when I cared about such things, Vodafone Australia contributed less than one percent of Vodafone's global revenue. It's not unprecedented for Vodafone to sell off operating companies.

  • bargainr on 16/03/2012 - 16:09
    +2

    +1 if China Telecom buys, would be awesome. They have really competitive in market plans with global roaming options.

    • scrimshaw on 16/03/2012 - 21:59

      I hope it's not Japan's NTT Docomo that buys, since they have the most expensive plans all around in Japan (and probably the whole of Asia). According to Delimiter, Korea and Japan are one of the few likely investors.

      According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodafone_Japan

      Vodafone failed in Japan as well and were bought out by another company, so it seems that Voda Australia is in fact a standalone company.

  • minijumbuk on 16/03/2012 - 16:36

    If china Telecom buys it and makes roaming in china and surrounding cities included in cap value I will drool all over it

  • Postulative on 17/03/2012 - 11:06
    +2

    I'll have to check my bank balance.

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