Vodafoe Group slowed the decline in organic service revenue to 0.4 percent in its fiscal third quarter to December. In Europe, organic service revenues fell 2.7 percent to GBP 6.63 billion, as the mobile operator returned to growth in the UK and the drop in revenues relented to 1.0 percent in Germany. In the Africa, Middle East and Asia region, organic service revenue grew 5.9 percent year-on-year to GBP 3.06 billion, led by strong demand for data services. Total reported revenues were up 0.7 percent to GBP 10.88 billion.
The company also reported a 39 percent increase in capital expenditure to GBP 2.13 billion. Vodafone said its Project Spring investment programme was progressing well, with around half the new mobile sites completed. This has lead so far to a reduction in dropped calls and 65 percent 4G coverage in Europe. Over time, the company expects the improved networks will lead to further improvements in churn, ARPU and customer perception.
Vodafone has launched LTE in 18 markets and said it had 13.7 million customers using 4G. Across the group, data traffic was up 84 percent year-on-year in Q2, with the AMAP region growing 110 percent and Europe 67 percent. 4G accounted for 26 percent of data traffic in Europe, up from 17 percent a year ago.
The total mobile customer base grew by 5.1 million in the three months to 443.55 million, of which 80.3 percent were prepaid. The fixed broadband base grew by 571,000 in the quarter, mainly due to the takeover of HOL in Greece, to a total 11.79 million at year-end. Vodafone said its fibre roll-out in Spain and Italy was progressing well and it also plans to accelerate fibre bundling in the Netherlands.
The operator confirmed its outlook for the full year to March of EBITDA of 11.6-11.9 billion and positive free cash flow after capex.
