Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD)'s fiscal first quarter was pretty much in line with expectations and the mobile giant has confirmed its previous guidance for the year to the end of March 2012. (See Vodafone Reports Fiscal Q1.)
Vodafone, which has about 382 million customers around the world, reported revenues for the three months to the end of June of £11.6 billion (US$18.9 billion). Shareholders were happy enough, with Vodafone's stock up 1.5 percent to 163.7 pence.
But while there were no big surprises, its interim report contained a few nuggets of interesting data. Here are the highlights we picked out:
Global data revenues are up 24.5 percent compared with a year ago at £1.5 billion ($2.44 billion), representing 13.7 percent of total group revenues. "Increasing smartphone penetration is driving greater mobile internet usage across our businesses, with growth in mobile internet revenue of 44.2 percent in Europe and 52.7 percent in AMAP [Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific]."
In Europe, Germany and the U.K. delivered slight sales growth while revenues in Italy declined a little compared with a year ago. The market in Spain is brutal, with revenues down 9.9 percent due to the impact of fierce competition and macro economic conditions (the Spanish economy is in dire straits). Turkey was the star turn, with service revenues, at £411 million (US$670 million) in the quarter, growing by 32.1 percent year-on-year (in local currency) "driven by strong growth in voice and data revenue resulting from a larger contract customer base and higher penetration of smartphones, as well as good growth in enterprise." (See Euronews: Vodafone Feels Pain in Spain.)
Smartphone penetration among Vodafone's European customer base is now at 19.5 percent, up from 13.6 percent in the previous quarter.
Vodafone's capital expenditure for the fiscal first quarter was up 20 percent at £1.2 billion ($2 billion), "due primarily to long-term evolution ('LTE') investment in Germany and network enhancements in Vodacom."
Vodafone had 27,000 LTE customers in Germany at June 30 following the launch of its service in November 2010. The numbers will probably grow more significantly once LTE smartphones/tablets (instead of just dongles) are available and the prices come down. (See Vodafone Beats Deutsche Telekom to LTE Launch.)
Vodafone is not just a mobile services company. Its fixed-line revenues now account for 8.3 percent of its overall sales, reaching £900 million ($1.47 billion) in the fiscal first quarter. Vodafone has 8.6 million fixed-line customers, including 6.2 million with broadband connections.
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