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Vodafone works to stave off predators, as share prices drop

Vodafone UK and Germany spent much of today lecturing financial analysts about "how well we're coping with pressure" in a nine-hour webcast session to coincide with financial results. I have known for some time how sceptical UK analysts are about Voda's future and how little they seem to admire CEO Arun Sarin - but today's hostility was quite high on the normal scale.

Financial analyst meetings are, normally, barbed. That is to say, questions are asked which expose concerns (is that the polite way of putting it?) but the barb is usually concealed behind a well-mannered, not to say obsequious facade.

Today's meeting was, for these masters of etiquette, quite a naked attack on the mobile giant. Costs are going up (they had to admit this) and revenues are not. And it's all Deutsche Telekom's fault, for charging too little.

"Would you agree that Vodafone is currently in disarray?" said one analyst, in smoothly modulated tones, where all deference was entirely stifled. Ouch.

The only good news is that there will be good news one day (to paraphrase UK CEO Nick Read) and that the Board is "confident" that it has already got plans to defend its position where things are known to be getting worse (termination charges, roaming ripoffs, network costs).

The introduction was done by Vodafone Group chief executive Arun who "hinted the mobile phone giant could sign more network sharing agreements along the lines of its recent deal with France Telecom's Orange in the UK," as Hemscott reported.

'Network sharing is the single largest cost (saving) opportunity we have in our business,' he told analysts at the presentation.

Your Mouse ended up wishing he'd gone to yesterday's launch. That was held by Clickcard founder Yohai Nir who took partner Alon Shmuel to a rather less staid launch at Sunset Strip. This being a business Web site, the illustration above is all you're going to get.

OK, the Sunset Strip is a strip club; and the point of Clickcard is that you can purchase "questionable material" on the Internet, without your identity being either revealed, or stolen. As the astonished Chris Green eventually managed to report,

You can pay in cash; do not need to disclose your real name, address or other personal details, simply create a user account on the Clickcard web site and input the code from the scratch card to gain credit and access to the material on offer. Also, cards are only supposed to be sold to people over 18, but we are struggling to see how this will be enforced and policed.

And now you know what to expect, you may dare to visit http://www.clickcarduk.co.uk/main_low.asp and sign up.

If only Vodafone had thought of that as a venue, eh? Would have saved them from having to go on and on about "irrational competition" from Deutsche Telekom.