Vodafone Group plc (LON: VOD) have announced a deal to distribute Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Platform across Europe.
Vodafone have hit news headlines over the last few months, and have been bruised by poor performance globally.
At the start of November, the firm reported a half year loss in an update to shareholders. The loss for the six months ended 30 September amounted to €1.9 billion, which alerted shareholders.
The company said, however, that this “primarily reflects losses in relation to Vodafone Idea post an adverse judgement against the industry by the Supreme Court in India”.
Later that week, Vodafone issued a statement alluding to crisis in its Indian operations, which saw its shares sink 1.92% on the announcement.
Vodafone said that the stiff competition from firms such as Reliance Jio (NSE: RCOM) and Tata Communications (NSE: TATACOMM) stopped business flourishing, and threatened the sustainability of future operations in India.
Vodafone concluded that the senior board would make an ensured effort to turn around business fortunes, and the deal with Amazon seems like a start.
Amazon.com Inc’s AWS Wavelength provides developers the ability to build mobile applications that serve users with single-digit millisecond latencies over the 5G network.
FTSE100 listed Vodafone, said it plans to roll out AWS Wavelength in strategic locations within its 5G network, and has had success after it finalized a deal to work with Virgin Mobile which was announced in the early weeks of November.
“With Europe’s largest 5G network across 58 cities and as a global leader in internet of things with over 90 million connections, Vodafone is pleased to be the first telco to introduce AWS Wavelength in Europe,” said Vinod Kumar, chief executive of Vodafone Business.
AWS Wavelength will be available first in the UK and Germany on the Vodafone 5G network, expanding to other Vodafone markets across Europe, the company explained.
Certainly, the domination of Amazon continues to spread to all sectors. However, shareholders of Vodafone can be optimistic about the move.
Shareholders would have wanted senior management respond to a series of poor performances, and the tie up deal with Amazon is a step in the right direction.
Shares of Vodafone trade at 144p (-1.14%). 4/12/19 11:19BST.
