Description
Vodafone Group plc
is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office is located in Newbury, Berkshire, England and its global headquarters is based in London, England. It predominantly operates services in the regions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
As of November 2020, Vodafone owned and operated networks in 22 countries, and had partner networks in 48 further countries. Its Vodafone Global Enterprise division provides telecommunications and IT services to corporate clients in 150 countries.
Vodafone has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £52.5 billion as of 10 February 2016, the eighth-largest of any company listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company has a secondary listing on Nasdaq.
History
The evolution of Vodafone started in 1982 with the establishment of the Racal Strategic Radio Ltd subsidiary of Racal Electronics, the UK's largest maker of military radio technology, which formed a joint venture with Millicom called 'Racal', which evolved into the present Vodafone.
On 28 July 2000, the Company reverted to its former name, Vodafone Group plc.
On 17 December 2001, Vodafone introduced the concept of "Partner Networks", by signing TDC Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involved the introduction of Vodafone international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone. The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets where it does not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone etc.)
In 2007, Vodafone entered into a title sponsorship deal with the McLaren Formula One team, which traded as "Vodafone McLaren Mercedes" until the sponsorship ended at the end of the 2013 season.
On 1 December 2011, it acquired the Reading based Bluefish Communications Ltd, an ICT consultancy company. The acquired operations formed the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within its subsidiary Vodafone Global Enterprise, which will focus on implementing strategies in cloud computing, and strengthen its professional services offering.
In April 2012, Vodafone announced an agreement to acquire Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for £1.04 billion. The acquisition gave Vodafone access to CWW's fibre network for businesses, enabling it to take unified communications to expand its enterprise service offerings. On 18 June 2012, Cable & Wireless' shareholders voted in favour of the Vodafone offer.
On 2 September 2013, Vodafone announced it would be selling its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications for $US130 billion. With the proceeds from the deal, it announced a £19 billion Project Spring initiative to improve network quality in Europe and emerging markets, like India.
In June 2017, the company took measures to prevent its advertising from appearing within outlets focused on creating and sharing hate speech and fake news.
In January 2020, Vodafone confirmed that it has pulled out of the Libra Association, the governing council for the Facebook-created global digital currency initiative.
