Vodafone, Founding Principal Partner of Wales Women’s and Girls’ Rugby, trialled its revolutionary 5G Fan App at this weekend’s historic 2024 Guinness Women’s Six Nations fixture which saw Wales defeat Italy by 22-20.
Featuring augmented reality (AR) technology, it uses Vodafone’s reliable, award-winning network* to bring fans closer to the action than ever before. The 5G Fan App allows rugby fans to channel their inner sports broadcaster, placing a wealth of data and insights at their fingertips. This includes team line-ups and player bios, as well as a wide variety of individual stats, including tackles made, total passes, turnovers won and metres made.
The 5G Fan App also uses AR to commemorate the game’s key events, such as a try, a conversion or a penalty kick by projecting pop-up announcement animations onto a fan’s view of the pitch through their phone, taking match day celebrations to the next level.
The Vodafone 5G Fan App has been developed with Immersiv.io and will be available to fans at Principality Stadium at the 2025 Six Nations Championship.
As part of its proposed merger with Three UK, Vodafone UK has committed to delivering 5G SA to 99% of the UK population by 2034. This will cover all of the UK’s 120 top-tier rugby, football and cricket stadiums, as well as the vast majority of its 4,000+ grassroots facilities, so that all fans and clubs can benefit from the introduction of newly enabled technology.
Gwen Crabb, Second Row, Wales Women’s team
Playing in front of a record-breaking crowd at Principality Stadium is such a big moment for the Wales Women’s team and one we’ll remember for a long time. Vodafone is such an important supporter of the women’s game here in Wales and it’s great that, as part of their partnership, they chose this historic occasion to trial the 5G Fan App. It has introduced a completely new element to the live game experience, helping fans to understand exactly what’s unfolding on the pitch in front of them and increasing accessibility to the game, which is a hugely significant step!
Maria Koutsoudakis, Brand Director, Vodafone UK
This weekend’s record-breaking Wales Women’s match was a real testament to the progression of the women’s game and a fantastic showcase of what rugby is all about. We were thrilled to mark the occasion by trialling our new Vodafone 5G Fan App at Principality Stadium, which harnesses 5G’s faster speeds, lower latency and greater capacity to bring the AR tech to life and connect rugby fans with the game they love in an exciting new way.
