The Telecommunications Industry Overview.
The industry is a system of interconnecting switches and lines that provide communication between various parties. At present, the telecommunications industry comprises of the following services: wireless telephone service, local telephone service, Internet service, long distance telephone service, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service, paging service and a wide range of other competitive services and products. All the above methods of communication operate through networks making a universal telecommunications industry.
Introduction .
Vodafone is a telecommunications company based in Britain. It is the second largest mobile service provider in the world after China Mobile. The company made its first ever phone call minutes after midnight on January 1 1995. In 1987, Vodafone was already known as the largest mobile network globally. Currently, Vodafone is the leading telecommunications network provider globally by turnover. The market value of the company is ranked third overall. It is behind 'Royal Dutch Shell' and the 'BP' group respectively (Garside & Juliet, 2014). .
Vodafone has approximately 435 million subscribers in 26 countries globally. In recent times, the company reported revenue of $ 17.3 billion (£10.2 billion) after the quarter concluded in the month of June 2014. The company has partnerships with networks in more than 40 countries. Vodafone has a division known as Vodafone Global Enterprise which provides IT services and telecommunication services to corporate clients in more than 65 countries. In the latest financial report, the company did not reveal profit figures but it had a $7.8 billion (£4.6 billion) net profit at the end of the 2013-14 financial year. .
Product Differentiation .
One of the strategies that Vodafone uses is charging their customers with a premium price but with extra benefits. Vodafone created the differentiation strategy when they unveiled the iPhone service, despite the fact that the company was charging their customers over their competitors; they still got the advantage over the other competitors by offering free Vodafone to Vodafone calls for lifetime calls.
