Vodafone sees sales growth accelerate
The world’s second-largest mobile operator by customers, which reported a return to quarterly sales growth for the first time in nearly three years in May, has been hit by weak consumer spending in its big European markets and price cuts imposed by regulators around the world.
But a steady recovery in Europe, helped by consumers paying for superfast 4G tariffs and the offer of new services such as pay-TV, helped the British firm to beat forecasts for first-quarter underlying sales growth yesterday.
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Hide Ad“We ... expect the second quarter to be similar to the current one and then to have another improvement in the second half of the year,” chief executive Vittorio Colao said
Three-month service revenue, a key measure that strips out acquisitions and currency moves, grew 0.8 per cent on an organic basis, ahead of the 0.1 per cent it recorded in the fourth quarter and ahead of analysts’ average forecast of 0.5 per cent.