Vodafone reports 37 per cent rise in India service revenues

Vodafone, the British mobile phone and broadband provider, managed to post a 14.3  per cent jump in revenues at 10.47 billion pounds for the December quarter despite a weak showing in Britain, Germany, Spain and Turkey. The company said its revenues were boosted by a 37.3 per cent surge in service revenues from India.

Vodafone's revenues, a year ago stood at of 9.16 billion pounds in the corresponding period.

A 37.3 per cent rise in revenues from India at 674 million pounds was one of highlights of the company's performance and one of the main contributory factors for the third quarter growth.

According to Vodafone's chief executive, Vittorio Colao, the company's underlying performance was in line with the trends of previous quarter with pro forma service revenue rising 1.4 per cent, including in India, and at constant exchange rates.

The service revenue in India grew 37. 3 per cent, or by 29. 6 per cent at constant exchange rates.

On the third quarter performance in India, the company noted that the higher usage was offset by the market trend toward lifetime validity prepaid offerings which cut the effective rate per minute. At the same time, it has reduced customer churn.

The company averaged around net customer additions at 2.1 million per month which remains the highest since the business acquisition, bringing the customer base at the close of the quarter at 90.9 million. 

The customer penetration in the Indian mobile market reached 30 per cent as of 31 December 2008, the company said in a statement.

While growth elsewhere fell sharply, the Italian, Asian and Middle Eastern businesses proved the most resilient. In Spain, service revenues decline 5.8 per cent, while in Germany, current quarter revenues fell by 1.4 per cent. In Britain, sales declined 0.7 per cent and alarmingly in Turkey service revenues fell 14.5 per cent on top of a loss of 643,000 subscribers.

However, the company's strategy of expanding in the Indian market has proved to be a winning move. Despite the slowdown in the Indian economic growth, revenues grew by 30 per cent and the firm added 6.3 million new customers.