Vodafone showed a small improvement in underlying sales trends in its fiscal first quarter to June. Organic service revenues rose 0.8 percent year-on-year, improving from growth of 0.1 percent in the previous quarter and a drop of 0.4 percent in the third quarter. The result included a 1.5 percent fall in Europe and 6.1 percent growth in Asia and Africa.
Vodafone said it saw a continued recovery in Europe, as the UK grew service revenue 0.2 percent and the drop in organic service revenue slowed in Germany (-1.2%), Italy (-2.0%) and Spain (-5.5%). It also returned to revenue growth in South Africa and saw a strong increase of 15.0 percent in organic service revenue in Turkey and 6.9 percent growth in India. Group total revenue still fell 0.9 percent to GBP 10.1 billion, as negative forex effects took 7.3 percent points off revenue and acquisitions added 3.1 percent.
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said the improving revenue trend was due in part to customer demand for 4G and mobile data. Across the group, the total amount of data traffic carried over Vodafone networks grew by 78 percent, with the AMAP region growing 97 percent and Europe 64 percent. Vodafone had 24.1 million 4G customers across 18 markets at the end of June, and 4G accounted for 35 percent of all data traffic in its European markets. In AMAP, the number of active data users increased by 6.6 million in the quarter to 122.2 million.
Data demand was supported by Vodafone's Project Spring, which is 71 percent complete with the mobile upgrade. The company has added 36,000 2G, 47,000 3G and 41,000 4G sites, and upgraded 71,000 sites to high-capacity backhaul since the build began. 4G coverage reached 75 percent in Europe, and it's also expanding the fixed network with next-generation cable and fibre, adding another 820,000 households passed in the quarter, for a total 26 million in Europe. Including wholesale arrangements, the NGA services are available to 62 million homes. The number of fixed broadband subscribers rose by 264,000 in the quarter to 12.3 million, of which 5.3 million were on NGA networks.
Vodafone's mobile customer base numbered 449.1 million at the end of June, up by 3.36 million from three months earlier. Growth was strongest in India, with the net addition of 1.5 million customers, and at Vodacom, which added over 2.8 million.
