Telecommunications company Vodafone continues to be affected by new consumer protection rules. The service turnover in the fixed network division fell in the spring quarter by 1.6 percent to around 1.59 billion euros, as the subsidiary of the British group announced on Monday in Düsseldorf. In the previous quarter, the company had already had to accept a small minus of 0.4 percent in the fixed network. Since December, for example, telecommunications contracts that have been automatically extended after their term can be terminated after one month. Numerous Vodafone customers also took advantage of this opportunity.
The consequences of the change in the law are also being felt by competitors, so it affects the entire industry.
The consumer protection rules also stipulate that providers must send a brief summary before a contract can be concluded. “In order to do justice to the changes in the law, we had to extensively adapt systems and processes,” says Vodafone. “Unfortunately, this adjustment did not work as smoothly as planned. The result: no new customer contracts came about.”
In addition, customers have made use of the option of being able to cancel extended contracts after just one month. In addition, there are still fewer visitors in the shops than before Corona – this is inhibiting growth, according to Vodafone.
The regulation also left its mark in the mobile communications segment. While sales in this service area rose by 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of the 2021/22 financial year, the increase in the first quarter was only 0.8 percent. If you add up the fixed network and mobile communications, Vodafone in Germany had sales of 2.86 billion euros in the first quarter – that was a minus of 0.5 percent. Vodafone Germany did not provide information on the profit.
A company spokesman pointed out that the number of customers had now grown slightly after a significant drop in the fourth quarter. So things are looking up again.