Vodafone New Zealand has announced plans to change its name to One New Zealand early next year.
The rebranding follows the NZ$3.4 billion (US$1.9 billion) acquisition of the Vodafone NZ in 2019 by infrastructure investor Infratil and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management.
Vodafone NZ CEO Jason Paris described the rebranding as ‘the next logical step in the telco’s ongoing transformation from being part of a global group to a domestic operator.
He added: “We think One New Zealand better reflects our deep connections and legacy in New Zealand, as well as our future ambitions.”
Jason Paris also highlighted the move means the company “will have even more money to invest into our networks, onshore service, and technology solutions for our customers in New Zealand”.
Vodafone will reportedly retain a separate partnership with Vodafone Group under which the British firm will continue to provide a variety of backroom technical services to Vodafone, such as the certification of handsets for its network.
The ability of Vodafone customers to roam on Vodafone Group’s networks overseas, and vice versa, will also not be affected.
Ghana
Meanwhile, the Vodafone Group is also seeking sell its 70% majority shares in Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Group, but the deal has hit a snag because the 30% minority shares holder, government of Ghana, claims Telecel does not have technical and financial muscle to run the Ghana operations.
Telecel is a leading mobile operator in Central African Republic, a key player in Gibraltar and also holds a mobile license and operates an MVNO (mobile virtual network operations) in South Africa. In total, Telecel has over 4 million mobile subscribers across the three markets.
Its main focus has been B2B, B2C, B2G and digital services under its Telecel Play and Telecel Services portfolio.
Vodafone Ghana is the second largest player by subscription in the Ghanaian market with over 7 million voice customers and third in the mobile data market with over 3 million data customers.
