Data revenue drives Vodafone growth

The mobile phone group’s benchmark figure of £11.5bn was up 2.5 per cent on a year earlier but 2.4 per cent lower when including currency changes and as it feels the impact of Europe’s debt crisis in a number of trading regions.

Vodafone said it capitalised on the proliferation of mobile devices and faster speeds to boost revenues from data by 22 per cent in the year to March 31, representing 14.5 per cent of the company’s £43bn in service revenues.

Smartphones are now used by 45 per cent of its contract customers in Europe and a similar proportion of customers take integrated tariffs, which combine voice, SMS and data in one monthly charge.

Vodafone’s service revenues were 1.3 per cent higher in the UK, up 2.7 per cent in Germany and ahead 19.5 per cent in India but this was offset by an eight per cent slump in Spain and a 1.9 per cent drop in Italy as the economic crisis in southern Europe and rising unemployment hits demand.

The group wrote down the value of its businesses in southern Europe by £4bn in today’s results and said its revenues projections for this year would be slighly lower amid “increasingly challenging” conditions in Europe.

It expects adjusted profits to be in the region of £11.1bn and £11.9bn in the current year to March 31. Shares opened more than one per cent higher today.

The group paid a special £2.2bn dividend in February, stemming from the resumption of dividends from its 45 per cent-owned Verizon Wireless joint-venture in the US. Recent research showed it will supplant oil giant Shell as the UK’s top dividend payer in 2012.

More recently, it announced a £1bn bid for Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which would make it the UK’s second biggest telecoms operator, improve its network and allow it to make efficiency savings.