Vodafone

The word Vodafone can be broken down into three parts. “Vo” stands for voice and “da” stands for data. These are the services that are offered by Vodafone. “Fone” means that these services are offered through the mobile phone. Vodafone is a public limited British multinational company that in telecommunications. It has got its head quarters in London. It has got a whooping 434 million subscribers that give it very huge returns. This makes it the second largest mobile telephony telecommunications company. The company has operations in many countries. It provides IT and telecommunications services in over sixty five countries. Out of these, it owns and operates networks in twenty one countries and has partnered with other networks in the remaining countries. Its extension helps it to enjoy a primary listing in the London Stock Exchange. On July 6th the year 2012, Vodafone became a publically traded company. This showed its market worth and its place in the market. It attained a market cap of 89.1 billion Euros and was ranked third of all the companies listed in the London Stock Exchange.

Products and Services

It has got a variety of services that are unique in each country. The products are customized to meet the needs in each country. One of the most common products today is the mobile money transfers. It first began in Kenya with Safaricom and was dubbed as M-PESA. The service has been embraced by many people as it allows them to send, receive, deposit and withdraw money from their accounts on the phone. This service has been developed to link up bank accounts with the network and enhanced its growth even more. Similar services have been opened in South Africa, Tanzania, India, Spain, Turkey and the UK. Vodafone also has a mHealth service product. This is aimed at providing better and timely health care. It aim is to enhance lives and help save lives. The other product is the Vodafone Foundation. Vodafone believes in mobile phones for the good of the people. They use the mobile technology in projects that benefit the marginalized groups and the vulnerable.

Criticism

Vodafone has been on the spotlight a number of times for the some wrong reasons. The worst is when they were exposed by the magazine Private Eye for tax evasion. There were protests and legal suits because of some activities that Vodafone was involved in so as to avoid paying tax. Vodafone have also been criticized for poor customer service. For example they operate contract services and are not speedy in disconnecting services of people who lose their phones through theft.