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Vodafone Group Plc. FY25 Q&A Transcript JP Morgan
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Emmet Kelly Morgan Stanley
My question is on the customer experience and infrastructure in the UK market. Margherita, when you presented your strategy before, you mentioned that improving the customer experience is probably your number one aim going forward. The UK market seems to be the market where perhaps you are having amongst the greatest success. There is obviously a big push to develop infrastructure across Europe, especially you see this in Germany at the moment. Just tying all these thoughts together, can you say a few words on what customers can expect to see in the UK from the merger, in particular, from a network perspective? This has clearly been a pain point in the UK, I know. If I look at OpenSignal, the UK networks rank so far behind other developed markets. Can you maybe just say a few words on what is going to happen in the network as a frustrated UK network user? I do remember sitting in a presentation in the late '90s with the former CEO of when the telco companies talked about bringing, for example, service to the tube in London, and that still is a pain point. Can you maybe just say how the MergeCo will progress on the network side? Sure. Maybe I will start with that and then broaden up to the more general point on customer experience, which I think is really, really important. The most important number on the UK for you, Emmet, today, as part of our guidance slide, we have given as much detail as possible around the merger. There is one number you will like, which is €1.5 billion of CAPEX invested in the U.K. market in this fiscal year. We are really excited and the teams are really ready to hit the ground running on the merger because it really gives us a unique opportunity. From an infrastructure perspective, you know everything about the £11 billion network plan. But let me say that from the very first year of operations, our customers across the country and Three customers, of course, will see immediate benefits from just a simple fact that as we combine two networks, we will have more coverage and more capacity. We will have to see exactly where you are on that roadmap, but we will start to see the impact straightaway. Then as the year move on and the £11 billion gets fully deployed, we will see even more benefits. In terms of what it means for us more broadly, it is really transformative because, first of all, as a Group, we expand our exposure to the UK 25% of our service revenues will be in the UK. Second, in the UK, we will have a unique set of assets. If you look at it from whichever angle, in spectrum, in the network, in the customer bases, we will be really structurally positioned to drive EBITDAaL and free cash flow growth even before you take into consideration the £700 million of cost & CAPEX synergies, which have now been fully detailed and validated into the agreed joint business plan, and on top of that, revenue synergies, for example, from the network on FWA. It is a step change that cannot be underestimated for us in the UK. And it happens in a market where we have consistently outperformed. As you mentioned, we now are firm leaders in customer satisfaction. We come from number three a few years ago. Now this leads me to the importance of customer experience and why we have done this journey. You have heard me talking about this since two years ago really, when I thought we had a unique opportunity on this front for two reasons. One is, as you heard me say, telco is not good enough on customer experience. That can be changed. But second, which is important for today, is it is the most important leading indicator for customer loyalty, and therefore, then our performance more broadly.
Margherita Della Valle Vodafone
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