Vodafone links up with LG Uplus
Vodafone Group is looking to compete in South Korea, inking a strategic deal with telecom company LG Uplus to expand the European carrier’s influence.
The new partnership with LG Uplus started April 1 but was just announced this week. Under the agreement, “Vodafone will share best practices with LG Uplus across all areas of their business, including network strategy and development, with LG Uplus benefiting from Vodafone’s knowledge and experience to help improve their customer base management capabilities,” according to Vodafone. Meanwhile, the two companies will “cooperate to offer unified communications and enterprise services to multinational companies with a presence in South Korea and internationally.”
LG Uplus is owned by LG and was created in 2010 from the merger of two LG subsidiaries; the company has been operating in the Korean market since 1996, originally as LG Telecom. As of the end of its most recent quarter, the operator had about 12.6 million subscribers.
Even as Vodafone looks to get a foothold in South Korea, the company is retrenching its position in India. In its most recent quarterly results, Vodafone reported that its total revenues were down 4.4% year-over-year; the company reported a full-year loss of more than 6 billion Euros (about $6.9 billion). Much of that loss came from a 3.7 billion Euro ($4.1 billion) write-down on Vodafone’s operations  in India, where the company faces competitive pressure from Reliance Jio.
Vodafone is working on plans to merge its struggling Vodafone India subsidiary with Idea Cellular; Vodafone would own 45.1% of the merged company. That deal, announced in March, is set to create the largest telecom operator in India with about 395 million subscribers — although the transaction still has to clear regulatory hurdles and isn’t expected to close until next year.
Vodafone will keep its ads off “fake news” and hate speech sites
In other company news, Vodafone said that it has taken steps to ensure that its automated online advertisements don’t appear on sites which peddle hate speech and fake news.
Vodafone said the new ad policy is already in effect, but concerns only the company’s own advertising and does not affect end users’ ability to use Vodafone’s networks to access such sites.
Vodafone said that it defines hate speech and fake news outlets as those whose “predominant purpose is the dissemination of content that is deliberately intended to degrade women or vulnerable minorities; or presented as fact-based news (as opposed to satire or opinion) that has no credible primary source (or relies on fraudulent attribution to a primary source) with what a reasonable person would conclude is the deliberate intention to mislead.”
The operator said that “while automated advertising is a powerful tool – allowing advertisers to focus their investment on specific market segments across almost all digital properties – in a small minority of instances it can also lead to unintended and potentially harmful outcomes including advertising appearing next to offensive content. Additionally, automated advertising technologies can have the effect of generating revenue for outlets focused on hate speech and fake news.”
Vodafone added that it rules “are designed to protect the integrity of Vodafone’s brands and sub-brands and relate purely to restrictions on advertising placement. They do not, and must never, be used as the basis for restrictions on access to content by our customers (or any other users) who must remain free to create, view and share all lawful content as they choose.”
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