21 July, 2017
Revenues in the United Kingdom continued to fall but the rate of decline slowed as it reported a drop of 2.7pc, to €1.8bn (£1.6bn), compared to a fall of 4.8pc in the previous quarter.
On an organic basis, service revenue rose 2.2%, accelerating from 1.5% growth the prior quarter.
Shares in Vodafone (LON:VOD) have jumped in London this morning, as the telco posted a rise in quarterly revenue.
Overall group revenue in Q1 also declined annually by 3.3 per cent from £11.8 billion to £11.4 billion.
In Germany, service revenue growth slowed to 0.6% from 1.2% the previous quarter, in part due to lower mobile wholesale revenues.
The FTSE100 group said that group organic service revenue, a key industry measure, rose 2.2 per cent to €10.2 billion (£9.2 billion) during the three months to the end of June.
Better figures were seen in Spain and Italy, where the firm reported robust growth, along with Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with sales rising 1.2 per cent, driven by a strong performance in Turkey. The FTSE 100 group meanwhile noted that competition in India remained "intense".
Vodafone Italia had 22.8 million mobile clients at the end of the quarter, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, with 19.6 percent on contract deals, compared with 18.9 percent a year earlier.
"While Vodafone is still feeling the effects of this body blow, first quarter results paint a far more favourable picture of the European businesses".
The company said first quarter trading was consistent with its expectations and confirmed its outlook for financial 2018.
Chief executive Vittorio Colao said: "We have made a good start to the year in Europe, where our commercial momentum remains robust, and growth accelerated across Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific".
