Vodafone appoints former Orange exec Vivek Badrinath as CEO for AMAP region

Vodafone Group appointed Vivek Badrinath, a former rising star at Orange, as its new regional CEO for Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP) with effect from Oct. 15.

Badrinath, who is set to replace Serpil Timuray at Vodafone, left the Orange Group in January 2014 after holding a number of senior positions including CEO of Orange Business Services and deputy CEO of the Orange Group. Since leaving Orange he has acted as deputy CEO of the Accor hotel group.

Timuray, meanwhile, is to take on the position of chief commercial operations and strategy officer at Vodafone and succeeds Paolo Bertoluzzo, who left the group earlier in July. Both Timuray and Badrinath will report to Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao.

Colao noted that Badrinath has a strong track record in emerging markets and "extensive telecoms and technology leadership experience."

His new position puts him in charge of a business area that is currently enjoying a sustained rate of growth. In the quarter to the end of June, Vodafone said service revenue in the AMAP region increased by 7.7 per cent year-on-year on an organic basis to reach £3.91 billion (€4.6 billion/$5.1 billion). Some 2.8 million customers were added in the quarter.

Although reported revenue was down 6.2 per cent, Vodafone said this was due to an adverse impact from foreign exchange movements, particularly with regards to the South African rand, Turkish lira, Egyptian pound and Indian rupee.

"Our growth momentum in AMAP remains strong, with excellent performance in South Africa, Turkey and Egypt and ongoing recovery in India," Colao said during the results presentation.

The total number of mobile customers in the region stood at 345 million by the end of June. This accounts for the bulk of total group mobile customers of 465 million, with just below 200 million in India alone.

However, the percentage of AMAP customers on contracts is very low at just 9.9 per cent of the total. That compares with 50.2 per cent in Europe.

For more:
- see this Vodafone release

- see this Vodafone results presentation

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