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Vodafone received a big boost in subscriber numbers over Christmas, with
an additional 188,000 connections lifting its customer base to more than 2.45
million customers for the December quarter.
The increase is almost double the 99,000 subscribers it signed up in the
September quarter, and well ahead of the 46,000 net connections for the March
and June quarters combined.
Revenue growth won't be matching the increase in subscribers, though, with
the vast majority of new subscribers opting for prepaid accounts, which have an
average revenue per user (ARPU) of $312 compared with $869 for people who are on
contracts.
The proportion made up by prepaid users has climbed from 37 per cent of
Vodafone's customer base in the March quarter last year to 47 per cent with
these latest figures.
This has seen reported ARPU decrease to $648 across its customer base for
the 12 months to the end of December 31, compared with $680 for the 12 months to
June 30.
Vodafone Australia's managing director Grahame Maher said the telecom's
strong growth of its ``no plans" or no-contract offers to customers had
resulted in an initial decline in blended ARPU.
However, he said the business was seeing healthy growth in profitable
customers due to the phasing-out of handset subsidies.
With mobile penetration now above 65 per cent in Australia, the vast majority
of new customers will be prepaid users, according to Telstra.
The Singapore Telecom-owned Optus, and Telstra, which account for 80 per
cent of the mobile market between them, will announce their December quarter
mobile figures next month.
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