Vodafone’s full year results were boosted by currency changes and by the growing importance of its emerging markets activities, though writedowns in Turkey and Spain hit the final profit figure hard.
The UK-based company remains the world’s largest cellco by revenues, if not subscribers, so is a major bellwether for the industry. However, many of the factors in its full year were very specific to the operator, including the weaker pound. It reported a 15.6% rise in revenues to reach £41.02bn ($62.47bn), although profits dropped to £3.08bn ($4.7bn) from £6.76bn a year earlier, largely due to a writedown on the value of Vodafone’s Spanish and Turkish networks. Excluding these charges (£3.4bn for Spain and £2.25bn for Turkey, plus another charge of £250m for Ghana), adjusted operating profit was up 16.7% to £11.8bn and group EBITDA was up 10% to £14.5bn.
The cellco’s mobile customer base was 303m as of March 31 and CEO Vittorio Colao said in a statement: These results demonstrate the impact of the early actions we took to address the current economic conditions and highlight the benefits of our geographic diversity. The business continues to generate cash strongly and we have made good progress in implementing the strategy announced in November.’
Despite these confident words, the strategy of cost cutting ‘ outlined last fall when Vodafone feared it might see a £1bn shortfall this year ‘ is to be stepped up. The group achieved about £200m of cost savings in fiscal 2009, though these were partly offset by restructuring charges. Colao now says he aims to deliver at least 65% of the total program of almost £1bn in the 2010 financial year ‘ in other words, by March next year ‘ ahead of schedule.
The shifting geographic profile of Vodafone was seen in its results, with its western European heartland experiencing a 2.1% organic drop in revenue, though the impact of the recession was muffled by new marketing promotions and the rise in data subscriptions. Weak elements were voice and SMS price pressures and reductions in roaming charges, termination rates and overall usage. By contrast, revenue in Africa and central Europe rose 3.9% on an organic basis, with double-digit increases in Vodacom South Africa offset by weakening trends in Turkey and Romania. In the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, revenue was up 19% on a pro forma basis ‘ the boom in customer numbers in India was a key factor, though revenue growth slowed because of strong competition.
In terms of customer numbers, the stagnating western European market saw Vodafone growing its base by only 3.4m across 10 markets (including the big ones of Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK) in the fiscal year, reaching a total of 114m. Two markets, Italy and Ireland, even saw a slight decline. In the operator’s Asia/Pacific and Middle East operations (six markets, including India and Egypt) 30m net new subscribers were added, to make a total of 94.5m. Within this, India-based Vodafone Essar added 24.6m to end the year with 68.8m customers. The US joint venture Verizon Wireless saw its customer base grow by nearly 20m to 86.6m in the year to the end of March.
Vodafone spent £5.9bn ($9.1bn) in capex during the fiscal year, including £1.4bn in India, and expects this figure to stay about the same in fiscal 2010, with the main investments going on expanding fixed broadband activities, upgrading HSPA and continuing its Indian roll-out. The start of Verizon Wireless’ LTE spend and Vodafone Essar’s 3G tenders should also fall into this financial year.