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Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone firm by revenues, reported a slight decline in organic sales, in line with muted market expectations, as strength in India and Africa compensated for European weakness.
Organic service revenue fell 2.1 percent in the quarter to end-June but reported group revenue rose 9.3 percent to 10.743 billion pounds ($17.74 billion), thanks to positive currency effects and a higher stake in South Africa's Vodacom.
The group, the first of Europe's major telecoms carriers to report this quarter, reiterated its reduced full-year guidance on Friday for flat or slightly lower profits. It has not given precise guidance for full-year revenue.
"Nothing wildly exciting in the results, which is kind of good," said one London-based analyst who asked not to be named.
U.S. carrier AT&T [ATT
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Spain and Britain continued to show sales declines as the economies in those countries remained weak, and other pockets of weakness appeared in Germany and in Romania, where currency effects hurt the results. Italian revenue grew by 3 percent.
Cuts in mobile termination charges, which operators charge to connect incoming calls to their networks, reduced roaming as tourists and business people cut down on travel, and lower spend by prepay customers all hurt Vodafone's revenue.
Vodafone [VOD-LN Loading... ()] added 8 million customers in the quarter, taking its proportionate customer base to 315 million.
Verizon Wireless, its U.S. joint venture with Verizon Communications [VZ
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Vodafone's data revenue grew 19 percent organically to 888 million pounds.
Free cashflow rose 21 percent to 1.896 billion pounds, while the company's net debt at June 30 stood at 31.2 billion pounds.
Shares in Vodafone were up 2.9 percent at the close.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes