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Vodafone Australia Failed to Anticipate Smartphone Sales Growth
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Vodafone Australia's CEO' Bill Morrow has admitted that the company lost sight of the growth in smartphones and had failed to upgrade its network to cope with surging demand for mobile data.
Speaking to a local TV channel, ABC1's Inside Business, he admitted that the 2010 network problems -- from before he took over at the company -- were due to a lack of investment in the network to handle smartphone sales.
"It wasn't that long ago that Vodafone was at the top of the mark. I mean, we had one of the highest brand preference score amongst consumers and I think reality is that the market got ahead of us," he said.
Since then the company has lost customers and committed itself to a substantial upgrade of the mobile network.
As part of its ongoing upgrades, Vodafone has already announced plans to start switching on DC-HSPA+ in selected metropolitan areas and begin rolling out LTE in selected areas from 2013.
"Already some of our customers are telling us that they feel the difference but it's not there yet. I want to be really clear we have a ways to go to meet the needs of our customers," he said.
Bill Morrow established his reputation as a turnaround guru after reversing the fortunes of Vodafone's Japanese operations before its sale to Softbank in 2006. He spearheaded the US$18 billion sale of the company before leaving a few months later to join a US power company.
He left that job after a couple of years to head up the USA based WiMAX network, Clearwire. He resigned from that job last year.
On the web: ABC1
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