Vodafone Share News (VOD)

Strong growth in emerging markets and the increasing popularity of smartphones helped the mobile telecommunications giant Vodafone post higher revenues and profits in the year to 31 March.Adjusted pre-tax profits rose to £11bn from £10.6bn on revenues that were up to £45.9bn from £44.5bn."The past year has seen further strong performances in our key revenue growth areas of data, emerging markets and enterprise, and we have gained or held market share in most of our key markets," the company said. "Continuing network investment is an important differentiator for Vodafone, improving the customer experience and giving us leadership in smartphone penetration and in customer take up of data plans."Vodafone said that markets remain competitive, with the economic environment particularly challenging in southern Europe. Weakness in the region has pressured margins, as has stronger growth in lower margin markets, the company said.During the year Vodafone incurred impairment charges of £6.1bn relating to its businesses in Spain Greece, Portugal, Italy and Ireland."We are gaining or holding market share in most of our major markets, and are leading our competitors in the drive to migrate customers to smartphones and data packages," Vodafone said. "We will continue to focus on our key growth areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets, while maintaining investment in network quality and the development of new services."---RG