Vodafone Portugal

Portuguese telecommunications company

The initial group of shareholders was led by Portuguese investment bank Banco Espírito Santo, Portuguese conglomerate Amorim and USA's Pacific Telesis, owner of mobile operator PacTel Cellular. PacTel Cellular was spun off in 1994 as AirTouch, which in turn merged in 1999 with British operator Vodafone. Thus, Telecel became minority owned by the Vodafone Group. Telecel was listed on the Euronext Lisbon Stock Exchange. Banco Espírito Santo and Amorim used the IPO and subsequent sales to sell out with considerable gains, and the Vodafone Group eventually took a controlling share. In 2003, the Vodafone Group launched a successful tender offer for all outstanding shares not in its possession, thus becoming the full owner of then called Telecel Vodafone. The company was definitely renamed Vodafone Portugal and delisted. The CEO since the beginning was António Carrapatoso, until 2012. Then Mário Vaz until 2023. The current CEO is Luís Lopes.

In 2002, when Telecel was already controlled by the Vodafone Group, the parent company decided to implement the Vodafone brand worldwide, in order to achieve synergies and improve brand awareness. Telecel was the first operator to initiate the process. This was achieved in three steps: 1. putting Vodafone after Telecel, thus referring to the company as Telecel Vodafone; 2. after six months, exchanging the order to Vodafone Telecel; and 3. after another six months (already in 2003), dropping the Telecel brand altogether. Throughout the process, market research showed no confusion and no loss of awareness of both the brands and the operator. This had been a concern for Vodafone for Telecel was a top ten advertiser, which had led to develop a brand with the highest recall indexes. In 2002, the Netc ISP and web portal were rebranded Vizzavi, Vodafone's multimedia brand in association with Vivendi Universal. In 2003, when paging was moribund as mobile phones had become so ubiquitous, the Telechamada business was abandoned and the license was returned to the State. In 2003, the Vizzavi ISP business was sold to competitor IOL, a unit of Portuguese media group Media Capital, and the web portal was closed down as Vodafone live! was launched. In 2006, Vodafone Portugal disconnected the Cell Broadcast service. In August 2007, Vodafone Portugal launches Duplex ADSL service with ADSL2+ technology. In September 2009, Vodafone Portugal launches Vodafone Casa TV an IPTV service. In June 2010, Vodafone Portugal launches fibre FTTH offer with television and Internet at speeds up to 300 Mbit/s. Vodafone Portugal starts offering VoLTE and is the first operator in Portugal to offer VoLTE, the most advanced 4G voice technology.