British telecom major Vodafone today reported a 9 per cent rise in revenue at 10.74 billion pounds in the first quarter ended June 2009, primarily helped by good performance in some markets, including India.
The company's revenue increased by 9.3 per cent to 10.74 billion pounds in the first quarter ended June 30, 2009, it said in a statement.
According to the company, the positive impact of exchange rate movements and benefit from merger and acquisition activity, primarily attributable to the additional stake in South Africa's Vodacom, helped in recording higher revenues.
"Group organic service revenue declined by 2.1 per cent due to weakness across most of Europe and Central Europe resulting from recessionary factors although good growth continued in India, South Africa and Italy," Vodafone said.
In Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, revenue shot up by 21.8 per cent.
Besides, Vodafone witnessed a strong growth of 23 per cent in service revenue from India.
"In the first quarter, the service revenue trend in Europe was consistent with the previous quarter and we continued to see good growth in India and South Africa," Vodafone Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said.
"Our total communications strategy is delivering well, with organic data revenue up 19 per cent and organic fixed line revenue 7 per cent ahead of the comparative period. Free cash flow generation was strong at 1.9 billion pounds, up 21 per cent," Colao said.
In India, service revenue grew by 23 per cent backed by the revenue stream generated by the network sharing joint venture -- Indus Towers.
The average customer base increased by 56 per cent in India reflecting the launch of services in seven new circles in the previous financial year.
During the quarter, Vodafone net debt decreased to 31.2 billion pounds at June 30, 2009.
About its guidance, Vodafone said it is trading in line with its outlook issued in May 2009 for the current financial year.
"In a challenging economic environment free cash flow generation has been strong, enabling continued investment in the Group's growth areas including mobile data, fixed broadband and India," the company said.
