Vodafone has announced a restructuring of its international portfolio, with the creation of a single European region, which the operator said will “ensure a more efficient and effective delivery” of its Vodafone 2015 priorities.

From October this year the firm’s Northern & Central Europe and Southern Europe regions will operate as one, under the watch of Philipp Humm, who currently heads the NCE region. Turkey, which still aspires to EU membership, will join Vodafone’s Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific region owing to its “emerging market characteristics,” Vodafone said.

The current head of the Southern Europe unit, Paolo Bertoluzzo, becomes chief commercial and operations officer for the group as a whole and will also over see a new Group Commercial unit, comprising Brand, Consumer, Unified Communications, Terminals, Customer Operations and Partner Markets. This will also include the new Group Enterprise operation.

Vodafone said that the restructure will better position it to meet its Vodafone 2015 goals, a set of priorities outlined last year designed to simplify back end operations and drive more regional alignment in its market facing activities.

Across its European footprint Vodafone now holds first place in just two markets; Ireland and Malta. In many of the others it holds positions that would characterise it as “challenger” were it a smaller operation overall.