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Lisbon, 16th of march 2021

Vodafone is recognised as a Leader for the third year in a row

Gartner has named Vodafone as a Leader in the March 2021 Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global, for the third year in a row. Our position reflects Gartner’s view of our completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Gartner says, “providers in the Leaders quadrant are performing well and maintaining a stable organization with a clear vision of market direction. They deliver comprehensive portfolios of quality network services across broad geographies. They address the global networking needs of a broad range of enterprises in terms of size, geographic distribution and vertical industry. Leaders shape the direction of the market by extending their coverage, developing new class-leading capabilities and commercial models and deploying them at scale.”

Peter Terry-Brown, Director of Unified Communications and Connectivity, said: “Over the last year, we’ve seen organisations adapt to the challenges posed by the pandemic. Networks which were optimised to manage a small number of sites housing thousands of employees needed to support thousands of sites, all with a single employee.  Networks need to adapt and our leading global SD-WAN capabilities mean we can provide organisations with a fixed network that delivers the agility and flexibility they need. This, coupled with our strengths in global mobility and our world-leading IoT network, means we’re in a great position to be the partner of choice for our customers as they continue to adapt, reorganise and transform the way they run their businesses.”

In this year’s Magic Quadrant, “Gartner continues to observe changes in enterprise requirements and buying criteria for global networks. Enterprises’ adoption of cloud IT service delivery remains key to transforming their WAN architectures.”

The report also evaluated 4G/LTE cellular approaches and Gartner said, “We see cellular connectivity gradually expanding in applicability for SD-WAN use cases, including rapid deployment of new locations, supporting temporary locations and providing diverse backup links. The enhanced performance of 5G will further broaden those opportunities.”

Vodafone offers managed SD-WAN services based on Juniper, Cisco Viptela, Cisco Meraki and VMware with 24 network-based gateways. Vodafone has also expanded its cloud connectivity offering to seven major cloud providers in 36 cities and has an NFV/uCPE offer supporting a good portfolio of VNFs, delivered from uCPE devices and 24 NFV service nodes.

To find out more about Vodafone’s position and what it means for our customers, read a complimentary copy of the full 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global here.

2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global by Neil Rickard , Bjarne Munch, Danellie Young. Published 2 March 2021.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Vodafone

Vodafone is a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa. Our purpose is to “connect for a better future” and our expertise and scale gives us a unique opportunity to drive positive change for society. Our networks keep family, friends, businesses and governments connected and – as COVID-19 has clearly demonstrated – we play a vital role in keeping economies running and the functioning of critical sectors like education and healthcare.  

Vodafone is the largest mobile and fixed network operator in Europe and a leading global IoT connectivity provider. Our M-Pesa technology platform in Africa enables over 45m people to benefit from access to mobile payments and financial services. We operate mobile and fixed networks in 21 countries and partner with mobile networks in 48 more. As of 30 September 2020 we had over 300m mobile customers, more than 27m fixed broadband customers, over 22m TV customers and we connected more than 112m IoT devices. 

We support diversity and inclusion through our maternity and parental leave policies, empowering women through connectivity and improving access to education and digital skills for women, girls, and society at large. We are respectful of all individuals, irrespective of race, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, belief, culture or religion.

Vodafone is also taking significant steps to reduce our impact on our planet by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2025, purchasing 100% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and reusing, reselling or recycling 100% of our redundant network equipment.

For more information, please visit www.vodafone.com, follow us on Twitter at @VodafoneGroup or connect with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/vodafone.