Vodafone has announced it expects to grow twice as fast as originally thought following a strong first half of its 2017 financial year.
In the announcement for the six months ending September 30, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) will grow 10 per cent between ‚¬14.74bn (£13.1bn) and ‚¬14.95bn (£13.3bn), and free cashflow to be more than ‚¬5bn (£4.4).
Originally EBITDA was forecasted to grow between four and eight per cent, and cashflow to be up to ‚¬5bn.
The rise in ambitions comes in spite of a year-on-year fall of 4.1 per cent in group revenue to ‚¬23.1 billion (£20.6bn) from ‚¬24.05 billion (£21.5bn) year-on-year.
This was due to deconsolidation of its Dutch arm, now merged with Liberty Global’s cable company Ziggo (now Vodafone Ziggo), and foreign exchange movements.
In the UK Vodafone saw a 9.6 per cent dip in revenue as mobile service revenue also declined three per cent over the first half of the year, declining 2.3 per cent and 3.7 per cent in Q1 and Q2 respectively.
Europe’s fastest
Vodafone group CEO Vittorio Colao said: “Revenue grew organically in the majority of our markets driven by mobile data and our continued success as Europe’s fastest growing broadband provider.
“Enterprise revenues continue to grow, led by our Internet of Things, cloud and fixed services, and for the second year running we achieved an absolute reduction in our operating costs.
“As a result, we are able to report a strong financial performance, with substantial EBITDA margin expansion and profit growth, and we are raising our financial outlook for the year.
EU infrastructure expansion
“In the second half of the year we will continue to implement our strategic initiatives, including fibre infrastructure expansion in Germany, Portugal and the UK; our entry into the consumer IoT market with the launch of “V by Vodafone”.
