Vodafone New Zealand, which bought phone company TelstraClear for $840 million last year, lost a net 7,000 mobile customers in the first three months of the year, its ninth straight quarterly decline.
Auckland-based Vodafone had 2.307 million mobile customers as at March 31 from 2.314 million three months earlier, according to its London Stock Exchange-listed parent company's annual result (see page 37 for Vodafone NZ results).
That's the fewest New Zealand customers Vodafone has had on its books since the third quarter of 2007/08, though it doesn't include customers acquired from the TelstraClear purchase, who already run on the Vodafone network under a repackaged service.
Vodafone's percentage of pre-paid customers edged up to 66.7 percent from 66.6 percent at the end of the December quarter.
The parent Vodafone group said its Australian and New Zealand businesses were the only regions not to report revenue growth in the Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific segment, which accounts for about 30 percent of the company's service revenue.