Vodafone Germany today announced its intention to appoint Hannes Ametsreiter – who resigned unexpectedly this week from Telekom Austria – as its new CEO.

The choice of Ametsreiter (pictured) as the new head will bring an executive who knows how to run an integrated fixed-mobile operator.

He will be proposed at Vodafone Germany’s next supervisory board meeting on 30 June. Ametsreiter will also join the global Executive Committee of Vodafone Group. The apppointment is effective from 1 October.

Vodafone upped the ante on fixed-mobile competition with Deutsche Telekom with its 2013 acquisition of Kabel Deutschland.

Running such a set-up should appeal to Ametsreiter, who led the merger of Telekom Austria’s fixed and mobile businesses to form A1 Telekom Austria.

“Ametsreiter is a renowned telecoms executive with great experience in convergent markets and outstanding expertise in marketing and brand management. We are pleased to have him for Vodafone and bid him a warm welcome,” said Vodafone Group CEO, Vittorio Colao.

Vodafone has a total of 12 million broadband customers (including Germany), with this business now representing 25.2 per cent of European service revenue, according to its Q4 results.

The company is also in informal talks about asset swaps with cable giant Liberty Global. One of the markets potentially impacted by those talks is Germany.

But Germany is a mobile market where Vodafone is struggling. In Q4, service revenue was down 3.2 per cent on an organic basis (and excluding the acquired Kabel Deutschland business).

The destination of current Vodafone Germany CEO, Jens Schulte-Bockum, is unknown. Schulte-Bockum was head of German operations for nearly three years (from October 2012). In fact, he is something of a Vodafone veteran, having joined in November 2003.