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Thursday, January 24, 2002 Vodafone Group Plc, the biggest mobile-phone company by market value, said it has reached its target for subscriber growth for this fiscal year, which ends in March. Vodafone had more than 100 million subscribers in 28 countries as of Jan. 21, compared with 83 million at the end of March 2001, said spokesman Bobby Leach. The numbers exceed the company's own expectations of 20 percent growth in fiscal 2002, he said. Vodafone declined to give a reason for the increase. The customer number ``is a landmark figure but it is more important to know what the company's average revenue per user is,'' said Alex Maby, an analyst at ING Barings in London with a ``hold'' recommendation on the stock. Phone companies in Europe, including Vodafone, collectively spent about $100 billion to purchase permits for faster wireless services in 2000. In an effort to profit from that investment, the companies are planning new services to entice users to spend more. Vodafone shares rose as much as 1.5 pence, or 0.9 percent, to 164.75p, valuing the company at 111.9 billion pounds ($160 billion). The stock has gained 21 percent since Sept. 11, when the company said it expected customers to grow more than 20 percent this year, at least 3 percentage points more than it projected in May. The company will give details of its subscriber numbers for the quarter ended December next week, Leach said. Vodafone today said customers at its Dutch unit, Vodafone Libertel NV, rose 1.6 percent to 3.23 million. In a bid to cut costs the company has slashed subsidies on handsets and stopped counting users who haven't made calls recently. The new method of counting subscribers is expected to boost average revenue per user. Vodafone, led by Chief Executive Officer Chris Gent, has made more than $200 billion in acquisitions since 1999, making it the world's biggest phone company.
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