Airtel-Vodafone celebrates five years in Jersey

James Qualtrough | June 29, 2012 | 0 Comments

Airtel-Vodafone marked five years in Jersey yesterday [28th June] with a handset and accessories sale for customers and a specially designed cake for staff and guests in the store.

Commenting on the company’s milestones since 2007, Ian Campbell, vice-president of Airtel-Vodafone, said it had been a period of firsts for the market. He said: ‘Our arrival in Jersey marked the beginning of competition in the telecoms market. We were the first operator to introduce free incoming calls when roaming and unlimited texts. We’ve fiercely targeted pricing and have dropped our call charges by 55% since we began trading. It’s clear that competition works.’

And commenting on the trends he’s observed, Mr Campbell said: ‘The average price of a handset in 2007 was £75. Five years on and smartphones have taken a hold – the average price of handsets today is £249 which is explained by the fact that 78% of our customers buy smartphones.

‘Customers are using more talk-minutes but the popularity of social media hasn’t completely removed the desire to text, which has also increased. However, no one can deny the importance of mobile phones in our lives today: in 2007, we changed our handset once every three years; today we upgrade every 12 months.

‘Airtel-Vodafone will continue to bring new innovations to the Channel Islands and our aim is continue our lead in the market by offering customers low-priced call, text and data services on a network which is far better enabled than our competitors’.