Vodafone: Revenue Misses Forecasts, Shares Slip

by Christopher Freeburn | July 20, 2012 10:02 am

Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD[1]) announced that its fiscal first-quarter revenue[2] dropped 7.7% to $16.9 billion, compared to last year.

Excluding charges for currency exchange rates, acquisition costs and asset disposals, organic revenue increased 0.6% during the quarter. That disappointed analysts who were looking for an increase of 0.8%, Bloomberg noted.

Shares of Vodafone slipped more than 2% in Friday morning trading in New York.

The company said that growth in emerging markets was helping to counter weak results in Europe. Organic revenues jumped 19% in Turkey. India was also a strong growth area for the company, with organic revenue rising 16%, but that was down from growth of more than 21% last year.

Revenue in Spain and Italy dropped by 10% and 7.7%, respectively.

Its U.S. joint partnership with Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ[3]), Verizon Wireless, is seeing much better results. Verizon Wireless attracted 1.2 million new customers and saw its service revenue rise 8.2% during the quarter. Last year the venture paid Vodafone a $4.5 billion dividend. Verizon Wireless officials have not announced dividend plans for this year.

The company reiterated previous guidance for the year, saying that sales growth for the remainder of the fiscal year would fall short of its stated goal of between 1% and 4%.

The wireless service provider took a $6.3 billion charge back in May relating to write-downs on company assets in Spain, Italy and Greece, all of which have been hit particularly hard by the on-going European economic crisis.

Endnotes:

  1. VOD: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=VOD
  2. announced that its fiscal first-quarter revenue: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-20/vodafone-service-sales-trail-estimates-as-clients-slash-spending.html
  3. VZ: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=VZ

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/07/vodafone-revenue-misses-forecasts-shares-slip/