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LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - Vodafone received norelief from tough market conditions in the first quarter, with aslowdown in Spain and South Africa resulting in another heavydrop in its key revenue measure.
The world's second-biggest mobile operator said the pace ofdecline in organic service revenue, which strips out items suchas handset sales and currency movements, accelerated to 4.2percent in the three months to June 30. That compared with arate of 4.0 percent, including a full contribution from Italy, in the last quarter of its past financial year.
Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said the year had started inline with the company's expectations, and its performance hadimproved in markets such as Germany.
"Through our commercial actions and investment, ourperformance is beginning to stabilise quarter-on-quarter inseveral of our European markets, with customer appetite for 4Gservices clearly growing," he said on Friday.
The limited number of analysts who provide forecasts for thefirst quarter expected group service revenue to decline by 4.2percent.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, Editing by Kate Holton)
