Credit Suisse lifts target price for Vodafone

Credit Suisse has lifted its target price for Vodafone, saying that price erosion is slowing and usage of 4G is accelerating at the telecoms giant.The bank raised its target for the shares from 220p to 250p and reiterated its 'outperform' recommendation."Vodafone Europe is likely to continue to recover as price erosion slows and data usage accelerates," said analyst Justin Funnell."Challengers have brought prices down close to cost in Italy, the UK and Spain, whilst Vodafone retains pricing power versus the challengers in Germany."Meanwhile, 4G adoption should pick up, doubling usage per customer and adding three percentage points to organic revenue growth in Europe by the year ending March 2017.By that time, organic revenue should be stable in Europe, compared with the current 5% decline.Furthermore, Funnell said this forecast could be too conservative: 4G data usage might grow more than expected, Vodafone's investment programme could result in better market-share momentum, while more industry consolidation could lead to price increases.Despite the positive comments, the stock was down 4.9% at 222.4p on Monday morning on the back of reports that Vodafone has held talks with Tesco about buying its loss-making pay-TV service, Blinkbox.