Vodafone expands to Spain and Italy

Mobile phone operator Vodafone has purchased Tele2’s Spanish and Italian operations. The firm paid £537 million pounds for the services, which will aid it’s expansion further across Europe.

Tele2 Italy has 2.6million customers, Tele2 Spain had 550 million.

The purchase of these two groups will also allow Vodafone to provide broadband services to customers in these territories.

Both Tele2 Italy and Tele 2 Spain services had a strong base of broadband subscribers. Tele2 Italy had over 400, 000 broadband customers alone.

Currently in the UK Vodafone has to rent lines from BT, in Germany it owns fixed line business Arcor which it acquired in a merger in 2000.

Broadband is key for telephone and pay TV groups to retain customers.
Orange, Carphone Warehouse, Sky, and 02 all offer broadband services to their customers.

Vodafone previously made a point to focus on mobile telephony, but in light if growing competition has diversified.