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Vodafone Group Plc H1 FY27 Q&A Transcript
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So, we are taking the right actions for sustainable growth in what, we said this previously, is the largest market in Europe. We are operating at scaling both fixed and mobile, and we have a strong brand. Now, you mentioned I said there is more to do, and I'm under no illusion. Our financial performance in the last few years in Germany has been disappointing, but we have not been sitting still. Step by step, we have continued to look resolutely on the mid-term sustainable growth objective, which is why we have continued to invest on our long-term health of the business, and we have simplified our operations. The simplification is ongoing. You know that in March, we completed the first wave of our headcount reductions in Germany and across Europe. In Germany, specifically, that first wave reduced the headcount by 20%, and now we have just announced yesterday another 2,300 headcount reductions. But the important point is that we are simplifying, we are getting leaner, as we should, but at the same time, we have two, I would call them, significant growth drivers that we are pushing in Germany. The first one is, as everyone else, customer experience. You hear us saying, and it may be a bit boring at this point, but quarter after quarter, our NPS, which we track obsessively across all our products, continues to improve. And this is because we are simplifying our journeys, we are investing in our networks, we become better and broader every single day. And the second growth driver is, we can now say that we have developed real assets in Germany and more broadly on B2B digital services. You've heard in my introduction, I talked about Cloud, I talked about AI, I talked about cyber security, all things that our customers are really demanding from us. And it's the investments we have done, and we will continue to do in that space, that have driven, for example, in Germany, 30% digital services growth in H1. So, I stand by what I said, we are not yet where we need to be, I think this is clear but again, as I said, I think we are building a very different Vodafone Germany, which is fit for the future.
Thank you. And any comments on the point about MDU going forward and the ability to protect that?
Carl Murdock-Smith Citigroup Margherita Della Valle Vodafone Group
Sure. We actually didn't see any significant movements in MDUs but perhaps it's because the fibre penetration in MDUs, and particularly what I would call the cable MDUs, which are not all the MDUs of Germany, the fibre penetration is still very low. So, we didn't see it. The impact on our net adds that we may want to talk about later is if we have negative net adds, it's gross adds, it's not coming from churn. And also, when you look at the numbers we publish, you will find that a disproportionately high amount of these negative net adds are in the DSL areas. So, nothing to do with the cable MDUs.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Carl Murdock-Smith Citigroup
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