Vodafone: Video Portion Jumped from 37 to 48%; Does 4G Increase ARPU?

Vittorio Colao, 

CEO, 

Vodafone Group

Vodafone published its annual report for 2015 (here). The "CEO Strategic Review" has some interesting facts on Vodafone's activity:

• We have witnessed exceptional demand for data this year, whether 4G in Europe or 3G in emerging markets, with data growth totalling 80% for the full year, and accelerating every quarter in Europe. As video and music services proliferate, and data coverage widens and becomes more consistent, customers are increasingly using their smartphones and tablets for entertainment, work and social interaction.
   
• Our 4G customer base has quadrupled to 20.2 million. While progress has been rapid, still only 13% of our European customer base is on 4G, providing us with a very substantial opportunity for future growth.
   
• With quicker network response times, better in-building penetration and higher peak speeds, 4G is stimulating significant growth in data, with usage typically doubling when customers migrate from 3G to 4G .. Higher usage has helped drive higher revenues per customer in some markets, especially

Europe 4G customers

Europe average smartphone data usage

• As customers use more and more data it is important that we monetise this.  Higher usage has helped drive higher revenues per customer in some markets, especially in the UK where 4G data usage trends are particularly strong. In some markets, average revenue per user (‘ARPU’) has continued to fall as the benefit of increased data usage has not offset the fall in market prices
   

• 4G is driving an increase in data usage, both in absolute and per-user terms. On average our 4G customers use twice as much data as our 3G customers and that has helped average smartphone usage increase from 473MB to 755MB during the year. This is supported by the large increase in video streaming, which now accounts for 48% of data traffic.