A high-profile advertising campaign failed to convince thousands of subscribers to remain with Vodafone.

As a result, about 64,000 customers cancelled their mobile phone contracts with Vodafone in the March quarter. Reckoned the past 12 months, the number of customers that left Vodafone is estimated at 120,000.

At the rate that customers are exiting from their Vodafone contracts, the phone company which is a joint venture between the British Vodafone group and Hutchinson Telecommunications Australia, is expected to have only 3.3 million subscribers in Australia.

Because of the exodus, Vodafone revenue in Australia also tumbled down 8.8 per cent in the year to March. Vodafone explained the sharp revenue decline to service issue problems encountered by customers the past 12 months.

To help address these problems, Vodafone and rival Optus inked this month an agreement to jointly build 500 mobile phone towers in the next four years that would expand the mobile reach of the two telcos.

New Vodafone Chief Executive Bill Morrow said his priority is to address the network problems and regain subscriber confidence.

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