LONDON (Alliance News) - Vodafone Group PLC Friday confirmed its guidance for its current financial year, as it saw revenue fall 0.9% on a reported basis, saying it made a "good start to the year."
It attributed the decline in revenue to a 7.3 percentage point hit from foreign exchange movements offset a 3.1 percentage point boost from merger and acquisition activity. On an organic basis, which Vodafone defines as being on a comparable basis, including merger and acquisition activity and movements in foreign exchange rates, revenue rose 3.3%.
At the time of its full year results in May Vodafone had guided Ebitda in the range of between GBP11.5 billion and GBP12.0 billion, and to be free cash flow positive after all capital expenditure, before mergers and acquisitions, spectrum and restructuring costs for its current financial year.
Vodafone posted group revenue of GBP10.11 billion for the quarter, down from GBP10.20 billion a year before, and service revenue of GBP9.17 billion, down from GBP9.45 billion. It said that on an organic basis service revenue rose 0.8%.
Vodafone said it is continuing to hit milestones for its GBP19 billion investment programme 'Project Spring', and it is having a positive effect for customers, leading to falling contract churn in Europe and stabilising mobile average revenue per user trends in a number of "key markets."
"We have made a good start to the year. Our emerging markets have maintained their strong momentum and more of our European businesses are returning to growth, as customer demand for 4G and data takes off," said Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao in a statement.
"However, our markets are, as always, highly competitive and we therefore have to remain very focused on efficiency, cost control, and excellent value and service to customers, while continuing to deliver a good return for shareholders," Colao added.
Vodafone did not provide an update or detail on its talks with US cable company Liberty Global about a possible asset exchange, which were confirmed in June.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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