Vodafone shells out big bucks in buying spree
Milk, eggs, social networking site, German telephone company...
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Vodafone is having itself a bit of a shopping blowout. It's just spent €474m getting full control of German fixed-line provider Arcor, having splurged €31.5m on Friday getting itself a bit of Web 2.0 action by buying ZYB.
Vodafone already owned most of Arcor, but Deutsche Bahn AG and Deutsche Bank AG were hanging on to 26.4 per cent until now. The company provides fixed-line telephony, including 2.6 million broadband connections, and has a 14 per cent share of the German market.
Vodafone also shelled out cash on Friday for ZYB, even if it was relative Euro-peanuts.
ZYB is a shared-address-book service with excellent Web 2.0 credentials: no discernable income, lots of social networking and a business plan which revolves around getting bought by someone bigger.
As Vodafone's Internet Services Director, Pieter Knook, puts it: "This is Web 2.0 in action."
Both purchases are part of Vodafone's new-found commitment to "Total Communications" – a phrase that crops up at least twice in every Vodafone press release these days, almost as though it's trying to give the impression of having a coherent strategy.®
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COMMENTS
Re: @Rich - no they don't
"Vodafone own 45% of Verizon Wireless."
Isn't that what Rich said???
@Rich - no they don't
Vodafone own 45% of Verizon Wireless. Verizon Communications Inc, an NYSE-listed company with a market cap of $110bn, own the rest.
Verizon...
Cant see Verizon being brought into the Vodafone Group anytime soon. Vodafone have made some very clear noises in the direction of Verizon that they would like to bring it all under the Vodafone Umbrella, but as far as I am aware, the holders of the other 55% seem to be quite happy not being part of Vodafone and would instead like to releive Vodafone of its 45% stake in Verizon.
SFR would be a better bet for Vodafone, as it allready runs on the GSM standard, and is part of the core European market. Vodafone also has a minority stake in SFR.
Tiscali (apart from possible regulatory problems in Italy) would only be of use for its Broadband csutomer base, which is where the market seems to be hotting up at the moment. CPW have allready said they are not prepared to put in the big bucks, and seem to have dropped off Tiscali's preferred bidder list.
As for buying Virgin Media, Bransons group do not seem to have much of an impact on the customer services at the old Diamond Cable/NTL/NTL Telewest Group, and Vodafone buying them (if they were to do so) would be a step in the right direction, and possibly bring things back into line (I miss sky 1 for a start), and stop the stupid adverts mentioned by the Esteemed Anonymous Coward
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