Vodafone has appointed Mathias Dopfner to its board as a non-executive director following the retirement of Luc Vandevelde, who had sat on the board since 2003.
Dopfner is the chairman and CEO of Axel Springer, the Berlin media group that publishes…
Vodafone has appointed Mathias Dopfner to its board as a non-executive director following the retirement of Luc Vandevelde, who had sat on the board since 2003.
Dopfner is the chairman and CEO of Axel Springer, the Berlin media group that publishes German daily Bild – the biggest selling newspaper in Europe.
Vodafone’s chairman, Gerard Kleisterlee, commented: “Mathias is one of the leading visionaries of the global media industry who has led his business through a highly successful transition into digital and international markets. I am delighted to welcome him to the board.”
Dopfner will join the board on 1 April. Once a journalist, Dopfner became CEO at Axel Springer in 2002 and has overseen a rise in its revenues from €117m to €1.6bn, with EBITDA increasing from -€12m to €366m.
Germany is Vodafone’s largest individual market. In its last annual report Vodafone said Germany made up £8.27bn of its total £43.7bn revenues for the last financial year. It entered the market in 2000 through its sector defining £112m acquisition of Mannesman, at the time the largest merger in history. More recently, it has expanded into fixed-line with the €10.7bn acquisition of Kabel Deutschland. It is now looking at a potential move towards content.
At this year’s Cable Congress, Vodafone’s head of Europe Philipp Humm said operators needed to convince content owners to alter their business models to monetise customers, rather than devices.
In Humm’s view, content owners should allow customers to access material on multiple devices for a flat fee, adding that those which ignore customer wishes are doomed for failure.
He also said operators need better access to premium content, which drives traffic, and that regulation should not permit exclusive agreements which are detrimental to customers.
“We don’t want to buy rights; we want to distribute content,” he said, but noted that if others buy exclusive content, Vodafone will need to do so as well.
