The former SAP CFO was responsible for the finance department of the software group for many years.
(Photo: dpa)
Hamburg,London The British telecommunications group Vodafone has recently repeatedly attracted attention with bad numbers. In the first quarter of the current 2023/24 financial year, the new CEO Margherita Della Valle was at least able to slow down the downward trend. Sales fell by 4.8 percent to 10.74 billion euros. Organically, i.e. after deduction of special effects, Della Valle was able to report an increase of 3.7 percent.
In the future, a German manager is to help lead the British telecommunications group out of the crisis: Luka Mucic will be the new CFO at Vodafone on September 1, as the company announced on Monday. Previously, he held the same position at the software giant SAP for nine years.
Della Valle, who was responsible for finances herself until she was promoted to CEO, was pleased to have Mucic at her side “at a critical time”. In a statement, Chairman of the Supervisory Board Jean-François van Boxmeer praised Mucic’s international experience “especially in Germany”.
Because the Federal Republic is the most important market for the British and is responsible for almost a third of sales. In the past quarter, Germany CEO Philippe Rogge at least managed to slow down the decline in sales.
But for the fifth time in a row, British business in Germany has shrunk. The important service revenues fell by 1.3 percent, while Rogge had to announce an even clearer minus of 2.8 percent in the previous quarter.
The Belgian Rogge, who has been running the business in Düsseldorf for over a year now, had increased the prices in the landline business and tried to win back the customers’ trust with “more honest” advertising.
In the fixed network, however, he could not stop the loss of customers. Around 70,000 customers canceled their cable Internet connection in the last quarter alone. In this segment, Vodafone is still struggling with disruptions in many places, but promises improvements. On the other hand, the mobile communications division, which was able to win around 24,000 new contract customers in Germany, gives reason for hope.
The growth impetus is currently coming from other regions such as Africa, where sales have increased by nine percent. In Spain and Italy, on the other hand, revenues fell slightly. Sales increased in Great Britain – but mainly due to price increases.
Antitrust authorities are examining takeover in Great Britain
On its home market, Vodafone is still awaiting antitrust approval for its planned mobile phone merger with rival Three UK, owned by the Hong Kong Hutchison group. The potential £15 billion merger, led by Vodafone, would reduce the number of mobile operators in the UK from four to three and is therefore the subject of intense scrutiny from competition watchdogs.
After the European Court of Justice recently overturned an appeal ruling that would have made mergers in the mobile market easier, the regulatory hurdles for Vodafone and Hutchison’s plans have risen again.
Vodafone CEO Della Valle described the quarterly results as progress in the restructuring of the group. “As we move forward with our plans to transform Vodafone, we’ve seen better service revenues in almost every market,” said the Italian-born. Business in the business segment developed particularly strongly.
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