Spark comes out swinging at Vodafone, claims No.1 spot

Spark calls out Vodafone, claims No.1 spot

There is no doubt, the telco market in New Zealand is a fiercely contested one. And now, Spark has come out swinging with claims that they’re the biggest revenue earners.

The announcement came after the recent Sky TV/Vodafone merger. Documents relating to the deal shone light on Vodafone’s mobile revenues in NZ, which Spark claim have been hidden from scrutiny for many years.

The merger documents reportedly say Vodafone will earn $1.065 billion through mobile revenue (excluding wholesale customers) in the 12 months to 30 June 2016. While full details from Spark won’t be published until the annual results announcement in August, Spark New Zealand said today it expects its comparable mobile revenue in the same period to exceed $1.1 billion.

“The company that Sky TV is merging with is only number two in mobile, not number one as quoted throughout their merger documents,” says Spark managing director Simon Moutter. “We’ve rapidly closed the gap to Vodafone in terms of mobile customer numbers over the past few years. As a consequence, we’ve been confident we’ve been edging ahead in terms of mobile revenue market share. It’s great we now have public information to confirm our number one market position on the most important measure of market share.”

According to Spark, their mobile business has been growing strongly, with mobile revenue up 11.7% over the second half of the 2015 calendar year. They added almost half a million new mobile customers over the three years to the end of 2015. Spark claim that Vodafone only added 44,000 mobile connections over the same three-year period.

“Vodafone operates in many countries around the world and we think this is the first time that one of its operating companies has lost its market leadership position to a local competitor,” Moutter says. “We’re delighted hundreds of thousands more New Zealanders have decided Spark or Skinny mobile is right for them."

Moutter affirms they’re working hard every day to reward their customers’ loyalty by being truly useful for their customers, helping them access all the innovative technology that is now accessible through a mobile device.

One thing is for certain, Spark surely aren’t pulling their punches. Your move Vodafone.