Vodafone hit by tough trading in Southern Europe

Vodafone, which kept its outlook for the year unchanged, said on Thursday group organic service revenue from the provision of ongoing services to customers was up 0.9 per cent, compared with an analyst forecast of 1.1 per cent.

European organic service revenue was also worse than expected, down 1.7 per cent as the financial squeeze on consumers in Italy, Spain and Greece from austerity measures pulled down solid performances in the two big northern markets of Britain and Germany.

Analysts had been expecting Europe to be down by 1.4 per cent. Spain and Italy were both particularly weak, down 8.8 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively.

“Europe service revenue decreased by 1.7 per cent, a 0.5 percentage point deterioration compared to the previous quarter, reflecting increased economic pressures in a number of markets,” the group said.

Espirito Santo analyst Will Draper said the figures were slightly below the consensus published by Vodafone a few weeks ago. However, he said the company had cautioned in recent days that trading had toughened in southern Europe.

“The one source of trauma is Italy,” he said. “Spain looks slightly better than expected although it’s still bad. The figures are a shade light against the consensus but what has happened since then is that much weaker consumer confidence in Italy has obviously had an impact.

“They’re sticking to all of their full-year guidance, so that is encouraging.”

Balancing out southern Europe, growth within the faster-growing division of Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific was 7.6 per cent - solid but slightly below the forecast of 8.3 per cent.

Service revenue in Britain was up 1.1 per cent while Germany was up 0.7 per cent, with both being driven by consumers using their mobile phones to access the internet.