New Definition of Customer

Vodafone Group PLC
14 March 2001

14 March 2001





                       NEW DEFINITION OF CUSTOMER BASE

                        CHANGE IN COMMERCIAL POLICIES

              COMMENTS BY CHRIS GENT AT MERRILL LYNCH CONFERENCE





Vodafone Group Plc ('Vodafone') announces that with effect from April 2001, it
will widen its reporting on quarterly customer numbers to allow investors to
monitor progress more closely and to represent more comprehensively the
drivers of revenue growth and is also introducing new commercial policies to
sustain cash-flow growth.



Over the last two years, the mobile market worldwide has been experiencing a
period of high growth in customer numbers.  However, a distinction has emerged
between the number of customers that are registered on networks and those that
could be considered 'active' customers.



An 'inactive' customer is defined as a customer who has not made or received a
call in the last three months.  In recent months, the mobile industry has
experienced a number of issues that have led to an increase in the 'inactive'
base, in particular, prepaid users upgrading their handsets who will
ultimately dispose of their original device and the purchase of handsets for
onward sale by dealers.



Customer numbers presented by Vodafone at the end of each quarter represent
handsets that are legitimately registered on its networks.  However, Vodafone
believes that these figures overstate the 'active' customer base by
approximately 9%.  During January 2001, within Vodafone's controlled
operations, 94% of the contract customer base and 90% of the prepaid base were
'active' users.



In future, Vodafone intends to publish its registered customer numbers within
4 or 5 days of the quarter end and, in addition, will within a month of the
end of each quarter announce further information on its subsidiaries' 'active'
customer bases as well as updating investors on their various key performance
indicators such as average revenue per user (ARPU) and data percentages.
Vodafone believes that all mobile operators have a proportion of their
customer bases which are 'inactive' and believes that this method of reporting
customer numbers should become standard for the industry.



This new denominator will also help to determine real trends in ARPU, the
level of which is negatively influenced by 'inactive' customers.  Although the
rate of decline of ARPU on the registered customer base is moderating, the
reduction of ARPU in the 'active' users is less.  Vodafone estimates that
penetration levels could be up to 10% lower than those indicated by the
current statistics and that ARPU is correspondingly higher.



This new measure highlights the importance of commercial policies which
Vodafone is modifying to ensure the retention of higher spending customers and
the reduction in prepaid subsidies.



Commenting, Chris Gent, Chief Executive of Vodafone, said:  'Given the very
strong market position of most of our businesses, in the next year the Group's
priority will be margin improvement and cash-flow growth, rather than customer
growth and market share.'





At a conference held by Merrill Lynch today, Chris Gent added:  'In the next
year the operational priorities for the Group will be the introduction of new
services, the roll-out of the Vodafone brand and the realisation of our
financial targets.  We expect to achieve mobile proportionate EBITDA growth of
over 25% in this financial year.  We continue to expect to make further
significant progress in the next financial year with contributions from our
recent acquisitions combined with better margin performance and new commercial
policies, as we transition to the full impact of new data services.'



'We will continue to optimise the business to maintain our record of
delivering outstanding performance for customers and shareholders alike.'



                                   - ends -



For further information:



Tim Brown, Group Corporate Affairs Director

Melissa Stimpson, Head of Group Investor Relations

Jon Earl, Investor Relations Manager

Tel:  [phone]



Lulu Bridges

Tavistock Communications

Tel:  [phone]



This press release contains certain 'forward-looking statements' with respect
to the financial condition, results of operations and business and some of our
plans and objectives with respect to these items.  In particular, certain
statements concerning our expectations and plans, strategy, management's
objectives, prospects, trends in market shares, market standing, overall
market trends, and revenues, contain forward-looking information.  In
addition, 'forward-looking statements' also include statements made with
respect to expectations as to launch and roll-out dates for products and
services, future performance, costs, revenues, future average revenue per
customer and future revenues derived from the new non-voice services which we
are currently developing, expected EBITDA results, growth, wireless
penetration rates and growth in data services and other trend projections.
Forward-looking statements are sometimes, but not always, identified by their
use of a date in the future or such words as 'anticipates', 'aims', 'due', '
could', 'may', 'should', 'expects', 'believes', 'intends', 'plans', 'targets',
'goal' or 'estimates'.  By their nature, forward-looking statements are
inherently predictive, speculative and involve risk and uncertainty because
they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the
future.  There are a number of factors that could cause actual results and
developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these
forward-looking statements.  These factors include, but are not limited to,
the following, changes in economic conditions in markets served by our
operations that would adversely affect the level of demand for wireless
services, greater than anticipated competitive activity requiring reduced
pricing and/or new product offerings or resulting in higher costs of acquiring
new customers or slower customer growth, slower than expected growth in
customers and usage and greater than anticipated costs associated with 3G
license auctions, requiring increased investment in network capacity, failure
to be awarded 3G licenses in certain key markets, the impact on capital
spending from the deployment of new technologies, or the rapid obsolescence of
existing technology, the possibility that technologies, including wireless
internet platforms, will not perform according to expectations or that
vendors' performance will not meet our requirements, changes in our projected
revenue model or global branding strategy, lower than anticipated future
penetration rates and average revenue per user rates, changes to the
percentage of active customers as compared to registered customers, future
revenue contributions of the services we offer as a percentage of total
revenue, our ability to harmonize our global mobile platforms, any delays or
impediments in the roll-out of 3G technology and services, multi-mode
handsets, limitations on our ability to offer new services, such as 3G, chat,
instant messaging and unified messaging, streaming audio and video and linkage
to Bluetooth technology, or with the delivery of GPRS handsets and other key
products from our suppliers, limitations on our ability to leverage the
strength of our balance sheet and cash-flows in order to produce comparative
advantages in our industry, greater than anticipated prices of new mobile
handsets and changes in exchange rates, including in particular the exchange
rate of the pound to the euro.  Furthermore, a review of the reasons why
actual results and developments may differ materially from the expectations
disclosed or implied within forward-looking statements can be found in the
description of our business and our management's discussion and analysis of
financial condition and results of operations contained on pages 7 to 34 and
44 to 53 of our U.S. Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31,
2000.  All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable
to Vodafone, any Vodafone members or persons acting on our behalf are
expressly qualified in their entirety by the factors referred to above.
Vodafone does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.