RE: Let's10 Oct 2018 15:19
"Thank you for your message. As our Chairman stated at our recent AGM, both the Board and the management team at Vodafone are frustrated by our recent share price development.
There are a few factors which have contributed to the share price weakness:
· Sector concerns: The telecom sector is down 11% to date on concerns that European telco’s will continue to face difficult regulatory and competitive challenges. As a major European player, this has also impacted Vodafone.
· Competitive pressures in Italy, Spain and India: We’ve had a new entrant in Italy and India and in Spain competition has also escalated. This is causing short term pressure on our financials and commercial momentum.
· 5G spectrum auctions: there are concerns that the numerous up-coming 5G spectrum auctions will be expensive, increasing our debt.
Despite these pressures, at our trading update in July we reiterated that we were on track to meet our EBITDA guidance of 1-5% underlying organic growth for the year, as these challenges were anticipated and we are taking strong actions on costs to support our profitability"