Vodafone reports sliding revenues on poor performance across Italy, Spain

Total revenues drop 2.3% to 11.4 billion euros ($12.3 billion) in the three months to the end of December

After implementing heavy cross-cutting techniques, British mobile phone giant Vodafone revealed Monday that revenues fell in its third quarter on poor performance across Italy and Spain.

Total revenues dropped 2.3% to 11.4 billion euros ($12.3 billion) in the three months to the end of December, compared with the same period a year earlier, Vodafone said in a trading update.

It added that revenues increased by 4.2% when stripping out the impact of currency effects, mergers and acquisitions and hyperinflation in Türkiye.

“We maintained… revenue momentum in the third quarter,” said chief executive Margherita Della Valle, adding the group had made “good strategic progress.”

In late 2023, Della Valle announced the sale of its Spanish division to investment fund Zegona for up to five billion euros.

It followed her decision last year to axe 11,000 jobs, or over 10% of Vodafone’s global workforce, to slash costs.

Monday’s update also comes after Britain’s competition regulator announced a formal probe into Vodafone’s plan to merge its British mobile phone operations with those of Three U.K., owned by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.

In early Monday deals, Vodafone’s share price declined 0.9% to 67.99 pence on London’s rising stock market.

“There have been some big strategic calls of late which should improve the group’s fortunes, leading to a simpler and leaner organization,” noted Interactive Investor analyst Richard Hunter.

“The planned disposal of the Spanish business, a merger with Three U.K. and the reduction of 11,000 jobs over three years will all contribute to the new look.”

The proposed Vodafone-Three tie-up, announced in June last year, aims to create Britain’s biggest mobile operator with 27 million customers and accelerate the faster 5G connectivity rollout.

Source: AFP