Company Name and page strapline

Governance

Major strategic risks

Risk

Context

Mitigating factors

Regulatory decisions and changes in regulation

We comply with a wide range of requirements that regulate the licensing, construction and operation of our networks in the countries we operate in.

In particular, the decisions of regulators on granting spectrum licences as well as wholesale and retail tariffs may affect us negatively.

•	We have specialist regulatory and government relation teams that understand legislation and regulation.
•	We participate actively in written submissions and formal hearings on legislative and regulatory changes.
•	We have access to best practice and international debate through Vodafone.
•	We conduct detailed scenario planning on an ongoing basis.

Increased competition

We are facing intense competition in all our markets. Our ability to compete effectively depends on network quality, capacity and coverage, pricing of services and devices, quality of customer services, developing new and improved products and services in response to customer demands, new technologies, reach and quality of sales and distribution channels, and capital resources.

In particular, pushing down prices to stay competitive along with increased capital investment to support growth in traffic, may impact our financial performance negatively.

•	We continue to invest in network coverage and quality.
•	We continue to expand distribution.
•	We’re focused on dramatically improving the customer experience across all customer touchpoints.
•	We offer a wide range of devices at competitive prices.
•	We continue to offer more value to customers through promotions and discounts.

Unpredictable political, economic and legal risks

Political, economic and legal risks in some of our markets may be less predictable than in countries with more developed institutional structures. The value of our investments in these markets may be negatively affected by political, economic and legal developments beyond our control.

In particular, the mobile communications industry can often be subject to unpredictable, higher direct and indirect taxes in these countries.

•	We have a comprehensive stakeholder relations strategy in place in all the countries we operate in.
•	We have a specialised tax management capability and seek expert tax advice as needed.
•	We will consider litigation to enforce compliance with legislation.

Customer registration

Customer registration is a requirement in South Africa, Tanzania, DRC and Mozambique.

Implementing customer registration requirements in our markets is costly and may negatively affect our ability to connect customers easily. We may also be required to disconnect customers that do not register.

•	We have specialist regulatory and government relation teams that understand legislation and regulation.
•	We continue to invest in educating our customers on these requirements.
•	We offer incentives to customers to register in good time.

Major network and billing infrastructure failures

We operate complex mobile networks that rely on third parties to provide power or transmission. In certain countries, like Mozambique and Lesotho, we have limited redundancy in our master switching centres. Network and billing infrastructure may also be damaged by natural disasters or terrorism.

In particular, network outages may impact customer usage and revenue negatively.

•	We have comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place.
•	We invest in maintaining and upgrading our networks on an ongoing basis.
•	We are self-providing transmission links on critical routes in our networks to reduce reliance on external parties.
•	We are making investments to ensure adequate redundancy capabilities where feasible.
•	We have comprehensive insurance in place.
•	We continue to consider dual generator and alternative energy supply solutions where feasible.

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