Vodafone to pump £500 million over the next five years into Asia & Africa region

At the recent opening of its new office in Singapore, Vodafone shared plans to invest £500 million over the next five years to scale up its network and enterprise capabilities, people and offices across what it calls the Asia & Africa region, which includes India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania, and through partnerships across China, South and Southeast Asia, North Asia and Africa. 

Source: Vodafone. Stevan 

Hoyle, Region President – 

Asia & Africa, Vodafone 

Global Enterprise, officiated

at the office opening.

Part of Vodafone’s global Project Spring investment plan, this business transformation programme will accelerate the company’s progress towards becoming a total communications service provider delivering an integrated suite of unified communications and flexible computing capabilities to enterprise customers in the region.

The £500 million investment will be used to:

· Hire people to expand regional sales, product, service design, build, operate & support capabilities across 10 sales hubs within the Asia & Africa region

· Consolidate and build Vodafone’s presence in Singapore, as the regional headquarters of Asia & Africa
· Secure new office space in Singapore’s central business district which can accommodate more than 300 people

· Set up an industry leading Customer Experience Centre which will showcase the full suite of Vodafone services in fixed and mobile connectivity, machine to machine (M2M), converged communications and cloud

· Extend Vodafone’s fixed network in Asia to reach 17 countries in region and interconnect into the deep national fixed/mobile networks in New Zealand and India

· Offer broader managed mobility capabilities through Conexus Alliance partners in 10 markets across Asia Pacific

· Expand One Net Enterprise service capabilities across Asia & Africa to deliver best in class hosted Microsoft and Cisco converged communications capabilities regionally

· Enhance Vodafone’s M2M platform beyond six markets in Asia (Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand)

· Scale capacity of sub-sea cable systems in the region:

Vodafone is a key investor into the newly launched Bay of Bengal Gateway cable system consortia, connecting the Middle East to India and South East Asia. It is also a consortium partner in the Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS) which will provide a terrestrial link between the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait in the first phase. The second phase of MEETS would extend connectivity from Kuwait to Turkey. Additionally, Vodafone is a consortium partner in the Tasman Global Access (TGA) cable system which is currently under construction. The cable system will span 2,300 km connecting Auckland and Sydney. TGA is designed to significantly improve New Zealand’s international connectivity and promote the development of broadband internet in that market

· Offer network-connected cloud and value-added managed hosting services through partners across Asia Pacific as well as owned data centre assets in South Africa and New Zealand

In the last four quarters, Vodafone Global Enterprise has grown business with existing multinational customers such as ThyssenKrupp, DHL, Panasonic, Mahindra, Orora from Australia, FlightCentre New Zealand and Imperial Holdings South Africa as well as won business with more than 50 new customers across Asia - almost one a week - including Bank of China (UK), Wilmar, International SOS and Faro. Vodafone Carrier Services continues to grow its engagement with over 200 carrier customers in the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific.