LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Vodafone, the world'ssecond-biggest mobile operator, said on Thursday that the rateof growth in its international business division had slowed,echoing a similar warning given by British rival BT lastweek.
BT, Britain's dominant fixed-line telecoms operator thatprovides networked IT and cloud services to companies andgovernments around the world, had said that it had seen a markedslowdown in its international order book, prompting it to take amore cautious approach to the sector.
Vodafone, reporting its third-quarter results on Thursday,said it was also seeing lower rates of growth in its globalenterprise division, and said it was taking a more disciplinedapproach to agreeing contracts.
Neither spelled out whether the slowdown in spending was dueto concerns by corporate customers for the global economy orwhether it reflected competitive pressures from cloud servicespecialists such as Amazon Web Services.
"Global enterprise used to grow (around) 5 percent, now it's2, so yes there is a deceleration," Vodafone Chief ExecutiveVittorio Colao told reporters.
"What I hear, what I see is there is a pressure on revenuesand we are a little bit stricter on the profitability of somecontracts, so we don't always bid to the last penny to win."
BT issued a major profit warning last week, with thebusiness hit by a slowdown in British government work and anaccounting scandal discovered in its Italian business.
The firm also said it had seen a drop in new work frommultinational companies, forcing it to lower its growthforecasts for the unit.
"We're taking action to address this trend," BT FinanceDirector Simon Lowth told analysts. "We are now more cautious onthe outlook for the international markets for this year and nextand we've revised downwards our expectations of future growthrates in this part of our business."
IT research firm Gartner has predicted that spending onglobal communications services will rise by 1.7 percent thisyear, while it expects IT services to rise by 4.2 percent. (Reporting by Kate Holton and Paul Sandle)
Vodafone (VOD)
