Vodafone

Vodafone Group Plc is a mobile network operator headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover and has a market value of about £84.7 billion (July 2007). Vodafone currently has equity interests in 27 countries and Partner Networks (networks in which it has no equity stake) in a further 38 countries. Its portfolio of global services, supported by its global brand, is available in a total of 59 countries/ territories. The name Vodafone comes from Voice data fone, chosen by the company to "reflect the provision of voice and data services over mobile phones."

At 31 January 2007 Vodafone had 200 million proportionate customers in 27 markets across 5 continents. ("Proportionate customers" means, for example, that if Vodafone has a 30% stake in a business with a million customers, that is counted as 300,000). On this measure it is the third-largest mobile telecom group in the world behind O2Telefonica in second and China Mobile as the largest. The seven markets where it has more than ten million proportionate customers are the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and, India. In the U.S., these customers come via its minority stake in Verizon Wireless, and in the other six markets Vodafone has majority-controlled subsidiaries.

On 30 May 2006, the company announced a loss before tax of £14.9 billion for 2005, the biggest loss in British corporate history. The loss for the year from continuing operations was £17.2 billion and the bottom line loss for the financial year was £21.8 billion. The company was pushed into loss by impairment charges of £23.5 billion, which related to the acquisition of Mannesmann several years earlier, and losses of £4.6 billion in relation to its discontinued business in Japan. At an operating level it remained highly profitable, with an operating profit on continuing operations of £9.4 billion before impairment costs.

Vodafone's UK workers are represented by Connect, The trade union for professionals in communications