He added: “Our emerging markets have maintained their strong momentum and more of our European businesses are returning to growth, as customer demand for 4G and data takes off”.
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With regards to the company’s “Project Spring” investment programme, Vodafone Group said it was continuing to make “great progress”, revealing that it is now 71% of the way through the project, with some 80,000 mobile sites having been modernised across all of its subsidiaries.
The world’s second-largest mobile operator’s group revenue was just over £10bn for the three months to the end of June, down almost 1% on previous year.
Service revenue in the UK rose 0.2 per cent, while Europe as a whole grew 1.5 per cent to £5.97 billion.
In Friday’s regular trading session in London, VOD.L is now trading on the LSE at 238.30 pence, up 6.35 pence or 2.74% on a volume of 9.52 million shares. Mobile service revenue was also impacted as earlier price reductions gained ground in the customer base.
Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said: “Vodafone has bucked the trend of a weak wider market with an update which confirms its ongoing improvement”. Fixed service revenue grew by 4.2% in the quarter, down slightly on the fourth quarter growth rate of 5.8%, which excluded Ono.
Service revenue declined by 0.1 per cent at Vodafone Ireland during the first quarter, the group said on Friday.
Service revenue in AMAP beyond India and Vodacom increased 6.8 per cent organically, with strong growth in Turkey, Egypt and Ghana partially offset by declines in New Zealand and Qatar.
Kabel Deutschland’s Internet customer additions included 22,000 managed migrations of Vodafone broadband customers.
It has a total of 449.19 million mobile customers, of which 121.18 million are in Europe and 328.01 million are in AMAP.
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In fixed line, Vodafone has extended its next generation cable and fibre networks to a further 820,000 households in the quarter, bringing the total number of households passed to 26 million, or 62 million including wholesale arrangements.
