Irish mobile users paying top charges

FIGURES from Vodafone yesterday showed that Irish mobile phone users are still paying the highest charges in Europe.

Pre-paid customers, who make up the majority of its subscriber base, spent an average of €364 in the past year on call and text charges. This compares with €308 in Italy and €128 in Germany. In Britain pre-paid customers spent an average of €195 using their mobile phones over the past 12 months.

Irish contract customers with Vodafone continue to pay the highest charges in Europe, forking out an average of €1,150 over the past year compared with €491 in Italy, €920 in Germany and €858 in Britain.

Overall, Vodafone's average revenue per user in Ireland increased to €591. First quarter figures show an increase on the €582 recorded over the previous three-month period.

The company said yesterday that Irish customers spend much longer using their phones to make calls and send more text messages than those in any other country in Europe.

Last week, O2 reported that its pre-paid customers spent on average €361 a year while its contract customers paid out €1,053 in charges.

Around 95% of the country's mobile phone users are customers of either Vodafone and O2, the two main operators in this particular market.

Vodafone said that it added 18,000 new customers in the three months to end June, bringing its total Irish subscriber base to 1.811 million. In the past year it has added 116,000 customers.

It also said that it was cutting the rate it charges for calls on its network by a third at weekends.

Last year, Vodafone reduced the charge for peak-time calls to its network. It said that the latest cut will benefit a huge number of customers as weekend traffic accounts for up to 25% of the total.

Vodafone Ireland chief executive Paul O'Donovan said yesterday's move is the latest in a series of price cuts from the firm.

"During the quarter we reduced the cost of picture messaging by almost 50%, we introduced new simplified roaming rates which represent savings of between 10% and 40% for key holiday destinations, we introduced an offer to prepaid customers which allows them 10% off their calls rates, and we launched new tariff propositions for self-employed and small business customers."

He added that since 2000, Vodafone has reduced some rates by 32%.

"This move ensures that Ireland is one of the cheapest countries in Europe for fixed network to mobile network calls," Mr O'Donovan added.