Vodafone share price rallies as telco’s revenue beats estimates

Shares in Vodafone (LON:VOD) have jumped more than three percent in London this morning, as the company’s first-quarter results came in ahead of expectations. The FTSE 100 telco posted a 2.2-percent rise in revenue, reflecting improvement in its European mobile-phone businesses.

As of 09:30 BST, Vodafone’s share price had added 3.71 percent to stand at 233.45p, outperforming the blue-chip FTSE 100 index which has fallen into negative territory in today’s session and is currently 0.36 percent worse off at 6,675.50 points. The group’s shares have been little changed over the past year, but are up more than five percent in the year-to-date.
Vodafone announced in a statement this morning that its organic service revenue had grown by 2.2 percent to €12.3 billion (£10.3 billion) in the quarter ended June 30. Data compiled by Bloomberg showed that analysts had expected growth of 1.8 percent. The company further added that trading in the quarter had been consistent with management’s expectations, and that the group confirmed its outlook for the 2017 financial year.

“We continued to make good progress during the first quarter,” the telco’s chief executive VIttorio Colao said in the statement, adding that the company’s growth in Europe remained “stable despite regulatory pressure on roaming revenue, with good performance in Germany, Spain and Italy”.
“This is a reassuring set of results,” said Polo Tang, an analyst at UBS Group AG, as quoted by Bloomberg. “It amounts to the strongest acceleration in growth for five quarters.”
The newswire also quoted Colao as saying on a conference call that Vodafone was seeking ‘pragmatic solutions’ to deal with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Last month, the FTSE 100 telco signalled that it might consider moving its headquarters out of the UK, pointing to uncertainty about how many of the ‘positive attributes’ of being in the EU will remain once Britain has left the bloc.
As of 09:59 BST, Friday, 22 July, Vodafone Group plc share price is 233.43p.