After years of focusing heavily on its cellphone business, Vodafone, based in Britain and the world’s second-largest mobile operator behind China Mobile based on subscribers, is concentrating on high-speed broadband.
Once, Europeans were happy to pay for separate cellphone, cable and pay-TV services. Now, they prefer them bundled into a single package that streams content to any device — a smartphone, tablet or Internet-connected television.
Regional rivals like Orange of France and Deutsche Telekom of Germany have moved quickly to offer these so-called quadruple-play deals — ones that combine cellphone, fixed-line phone, broadband Internet and TV services. But Vodafone, which had largely staked its claim in the cellphone business, has found itself playing catch-up just as Europe’s telecom industry undergoes a new round of consolidation.
“Vodafone used to think that offering mobile would be enough,” said Katja Ruud, a telecom analyst at the technology research company Gartner Research. “But they’ve realized that if they want to keep up with competitors, they have to offer all the services people are looking for.”
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“The era of just offering mobile services is coming to an end,” said Bengt Nordström, co-founder of Northstream, a telecom consulting firm. “The idea that Vodafone is making a play for cable assets makes total sense.”
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