The outfit has announced that it will cut 500 jobs in Germany as the group adjusts to harsher competition and lower fees in Europe's largest economy. A spokesman said that there will be a two-year programme to reduce the workforce and restructure. The company aims to shift some operations to Romania and India. Other plans include reducing starting salaries.

The main areas to be cut will be network technology and customer service. What appears to have gone wrong for Vodafone is that there have been low price offers for smartphones from Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit and a regulatory ruling that lowers the fees mobile operators can charge for calls coming from other networks.