UK telecoms giant Vodafone Group has reported a 3.6% year-on-year decline in revenues for the quarter ended 31 December 2017, with the company attributing this to the deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands and foreign exchange movements. In the period under review, Vodafone Group generated a total turnover of EUR11.79 billion (USD14.68 billion), down from a restated figure of EUR12.24 billion in the same period a year earlier, which included a 3.8% negative impact from the deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands following the creation joint venture VodafoneZiggo, and a 3.5% negative impact from forex movements. Meanwhile, although Vodafone said that on an organic basis service revenue had increased by 1.1%, in the three-month period group service revenues totalled EUR10.19 billion, down from EUR10.86 billion a year earlier. In regional terms, meanwhile, in the last three months of 2017 the company’s ‘Europe’ division represented the largest share of revenues – EUR8.63 billion, down from EUR8.88 billion – while its ‘Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific’ (‘AMAP’) unit saw turnover of EUR2.86 billion, representing a 5.6% y-o-y drop.
At the end of December 2017 Vodafone Group’s mobile subscriber base totalled 276.86 million, up 4.5% y-o-y from 264.88 million at end-2016, 29% of which were post-paid (up from 29.3%). Notably, the group surpassed 100 million 4G connections at the end of the year, with 55.5 million of those attributed to its European unit, and 49.5 million to its AMAP division. Fixed broadband accesses (excluding VodafoneZiggo) numbered 15.74 million at the end of the reporting period, up from 14.32 million a year earlier, while it had signed up a total of 14.89 million fixed voice subscribers at end-2017 (end-2016: 13.92 million).
Commenting on the company’s performance, Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao said: ‘We have maintained good commercial momentum in the third quarter. Data usage continues to grow strongly, and we have now passed the 100 million 4G customer milestone. We made strong progress with our fixed and convergence strategy, achieving our best ever quarter for customer growth in high speed broadband in Europe. We also continued to grow our Enterprise business – boosted by our world-leading Internet of Things platform – despite the impact of regulation.’