Vodafone Group PLC, Europe’s largest mobile phone company, said on Friday that revenue fell by 7.7 per cent in the three months ending June 30 compared with a year earlier as gains in emerging markets were offset by a patchy performance in Europe.
Vodafone posted April-June group revenue of 10.8 billion pounds (Rs 93,502 crore), reflecting organic growth 1% from the same period a year ago. This is due to impact from foreign exchange fluctuations, merger and acquisitions, and a change in the Group’s mobile roaming policy, the company said in a statement.
Vodafone India operations reported organic revenue for the quarter ended June 2012 rose 16.2 per cent on an annual basis, the company said on Friday.
India operations reported revenue was at 1,029 million British pounds, or Rs 8966.70 crore (1 GBP=Rs87.14, as of June 29, 2012), for the June quarter, down from 1,039 million GBP in the year-ago period, a decline of one per cent. Service revenue growth was lower 21.1 per cent on a sequential basis.
Vodafone said part of the revenue contraction of -3.8 per cent in the Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific was because of foreign exchange movement. The Indian rupee has fallen almost 19 per cent in the period between July 2011 through June 2012.
“Despite the difficult market conditions, particularly in southern Europe, we continue to make progress in the key areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets, while maintaining tight control of our cost base. We remain focused on driving through significant improvements to our customers’ experience through our ongoing investment in our networks, stores and IT platforms.”
The increase was driven by organic growth, including an increase in closing customer base, strong growth in voice minutes and a 1.6 per cent growth in the effective outgoing rate per minute”, Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive, commented.
Voice revenue fell from 811 million GBP to 809 million GBP, or Rs7,049.62 crore, in the June quarter on an annual basis. Revenues from data also fell from 89 million GBP to 83 million GBP (Rs723.26 crore). Revenues from messaging also fell by 6 million pounds to 38 million GDP (Rs 331.13 crore).
Data revenue grew by 12.4 per cent, with active data customers at approximately 31 million1 including around 1.7 million 3G data customers.
The company said regulatory changes in the first quarter also affected how integrated tariffs were offered to consumers. “There was also a lower rate of growth at Indus Towers following a slow down in tenancies from new entrants and a change in the pricing structure for some existing customers,” Vodafone said in a statement.
