Vodafone Group PLC’s new chief executive officer, Margherita Della Valle, yesterday unveiled a plan to revive growth at the telecom giant, pledging to slash jobs and simplify the company’s corporate structure.
Vodafone is to cut about 11,000 roles across the about 104,000 people it employs over the next three years, work to turn around its German business and start a “strategic review” of its Spanish unit, the Newbury, England-based company said in a statement.
Della Valle, a 29-year Vodafone veteran who was previously chief financial officer and interim CEO before she was made permanent in the top role last month, said in the statement that she would reallocate resources to focus on the “quality service our customers expect” and grow the Vodafone Business unit.
Photo: Reuters
“Our performance has not been good enough. To consistently deliver, Vodafone must change,” she said in the statement. “My priorities are customers, simplicity and growth. We will simplify our organization, cutting out complexity to regain our competitiveness.”
The company’s adjusted free cash flow, a closely watched metric, would drop by about 31 percent to 3.3 billion euros (US$3.65 billion) in the fiscal year ending in March, following divestments, but also taking a hit due to “expected working capital movements,” the company said.
Much of the decline is due to a change in German law which affects how Vodafone is able to collect money from customers, a spokesman said.
A company-compiled consensus of analyst estimates had put the figure at 3.6 billion euros.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization after leases are expected to be 13.3 billion euros in the year ending in March, which Vodafone described as “broadly flat” once factoring in the partial sale of mobile mast unit Vantage Towers AG and divestment of its business in Hungary.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS