Vodafone 360 Opens Up To Apps Developers At Mobile World Congress

Vodafone today announced the next phase of its engagement with the international developer community following the launch of its €1m ‘Vodafone App Star’ prize fund to reward developers of the best app in Europe. Registration is now open to the Vodafone 360 Developer Conference, to be held at Mobile World Congress on Monday 15th February 2010. All developers who register now will also receive a free 4-day pass to Mobile World Congress.

Mobile and web developers can audition their app at the show, where the winners will be rewarded with prizes including €1000, a Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 and other exciting smartphones. They will also automatically be entered into the Vodafone App Star competition with a further chance to win up to €100,000.

The Vodafone 360 Developer Conference will also host interactive discussions on developer topics with a range of industry experts, and provide useful tips on how to create and publish apps across Vodafone 360 devices. To highlight the cross-platform reach of its apps developer platform, Vodafone will also be the headline sponsor of the “App Planet” developer zone at Mobile World Congress.

In just three months since the launch of Vodafone 360, over 7,000 apps have been made available for download from the Vodafone 360 Apps Shop across eight European markets. By March 2010 Vodafone expects to have shipped more than two million devices incorporating 50 different handsets that are capable of accessing the Vodafone 360 Apps Shop. This will provide the developer community with greater access to more customers.

“The sheer volume of applications that have been submitted and approved to ship in our Vodafone 360 Apps Shop is testament to our continued commitment to open web standards,” said Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group. “Whether it’s helping to reduce development time or increasing the breadth of handsets on our platform, we are trying to make it as easy and as lucrative as possible for developers to work with us and deliver the most relevant, local applications for customers across our markets.”

For more information or to register go to: http://jil.vodafone.com/app_planet/

Vodafone, the Vodafone logo and Vodafone 360 are trade marks of the Vodafone Group. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trade marks of their respective owners.

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to expectations regarding the distribution of Vodafone 360 application enabled handsets. 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.

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 by referring to the information contained under the heading “Other Information – Forward-Looking Statements” in Vodafone Group Plc’s Half-Year Financial Report for the six months ending 30 September 2009, and “Forward-looking statements” and “Principal risk factors and uncertainties” in Vodafone Group Plc’s Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2009. The Half-Year Financial Report and the Annual Report can be found on the Group’s website (www.vodafone.com/investor). All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or any member of the Group or any persons acting on their behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the factors referred to above. No assurances can be given that the forward-looking statements in this press release will be realised. Except as otherwise stated herein and as may be required to comply with applicable law and regulations, Vodafone does not intend to update these forward-looking statements and does not undertake any obligation to do so.