Vittorio Colao has begun his tenure at Vodafone with a reshuffle. The emerging markets division has, sensibly, been split in two, as Asia and Eastern Europe cannot be handled by one individual. Bringing in Michel Combes is an impressive hire, given his experience.

Reorganisations, though, are not how Vodafone chief executives are ultimately judged. What matters are mergers and acquisitions. Sir Christopher Gent conquered Europe by buying Mannesmann, while Arun Sarin, his successor, took the company out of Japan and into emerging markets by moving into India.

The two unanswered questions about Vodafone are whether it should sell or take control in the United States, and whether it can find a way of prising SFR, France's No2 operator, from its partner Vivendi, the media and telecoms conglomerate.

That Mr Colao is taking the United States for himself shows how important it has become. Vodafone's 45 per cent of Verizon Wireless is worth perhaps $70 billion, which is poorly reflected in the group's $126 billion (£72 billion) market value. But getting out of America would represent the end of Vodafone's credibility as a global telecoms player and the US operation is growing at 12 per cent annually, while the saturated European has turned negative.

Moreover, there is little reason for Vodafone to sell to Verizon, which may be the controlling shareholder, but is worth just $97 billion. It is not clear that Verizon could offer cash to buy out its partner. At least Mr Colao, who will sit on the board of the wireless joint-venture, has a ringside seat.

Meanwhile, the appointment of Mr Combes is intriguing. Who better than a Frenchman to help to orchestrate a move on Vivendi, which at a mere E29 billion (£23 billion) and with no controlling shareholder, is a much smaller mouthful for the British giant.

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