PROFITS AT the Irish arm of mobile network operator Vodafone fell by close to 17 per cent to €106 million last year, the company’s latest figures show.
Vodafone Ireland operates one of four mobile networks in the Republic, and is part of the multi-national Vodafone Group, which has more than 400,000 Irish retail shareholders.
Returns made to the Companies’ Registration Office show that revenue earned from subscribers to Vodafone Ireland’s service dipped by 2.7 per cent in the 12 months to March 31st, the firm’s financial year.
Operating profits fell by about 17 per cent to €102 million from €122 million, while pretax profits fell by a similar amount to €106 million from €127 million.
Vodafone paid a dividend of €60 million to its shareholder, the Vodafone Group, during the year, less than half the €125 million paid in 2010.
The company employed 1,233 people during the year, a fall of about 70 on 2010.
However, its salary bill actually increased to €102 million from €90.5 million.
Vodafone Ireland’s directors’ report states that it had 2.2 million mobile customers on March 31st last, over 3 per cent more than three months earlier, and 200,000 fixed-line customers.
Each of its customers paid an average of €32.30 a month for the company’s services during the financial year. This was 10 per cent less than in the previous year.
The customers sent a total of 5.6 billion texts and spoke on their phones for a total of 6.8 billion minutes.
Many of Vodafone’s customers switched to smartphones during the year. More than half the phones bought by subscribers in the months between the end of December 2010 and March 31st, 2011, were smartphones.
The company said it invested €60 million in its network during its 2011 financial year and intended to increase spending on its network during the succeeding year.
