Vodafone Group Revenue Falls After Sale of Hungarian Business — Update

By Najat Kantouar

Vodafone Group third-quarter revenue fell due to the sale of its Hungarian unit despite further growth at its business segment.

At 0924 GMT, shares were down 0.55 pence, or 0.80%, at 68.05 pence. Over the twelve past months, shares are down 25.4%

The U.K.-based telecommunications company said Monday that for the quarter ended Dec. 31, group revenue fell 2.3% to 11.37 billion euros ($12.27 billion) from the same period a year earlier, but rose 4.2% on organic basis. This reflects the sale of Vodafone Hungary to 4iG Public Limited Company and Corvinus Zrt on Jan. 31, 2023 for 660 billion Hungarian forint ($1.85 billion).

The group's service revenue--a closely watched metric in the telecom sector--fell to EUR9.38 billion from EUR9.52 billion.

Within this, Italy was down 1.3% and Spain fell 1.2%, while the U.K. rose 5.2% and other European country's grew 3.6% to EUR1.175 billion. Germany service revenue increased 0.3% to EUR2.89 billion. In Turkey, service revenue rose to EUR393 million.

At its Vodafone Business segment, service revenue growth accelerated to 5%, boosted by a strong performance in digital services, the company said.

Vodafone reiterated that for fiscal 2024, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and after leases are expected to be broadly flat at around EUR13.3 billion and adjusted free cash flow is seen around EUR3.3 billion.

"We've made good strategic progress in the first nine months of the year, with improving customer satisfaction and three consecutive quarters of service revenue growth in Europe. Our announced transactions in the U.K. and Spain are progressing well, and we are in active discussions in Italy," Group Chief Executive Margherita Della Valle said.

Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2024 04:58 ET (09:58 GMT)

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