Bharti Airtel Reports Remarkable Growth

Bharti Airtel reported a 18% year-on-year increase in revenues on an underlying basis for the quarter ending March 31. For the year to March 31, revenues were up almost 11% to 875 billion Indian rupees (11.56 billion US dollars). In India, mobile revenues rose 22% in the quarter led by an increase in the operator's 4G customer base coupled with improved tariffs. Airtel said that mobile ARPU for the quarter was 154 rupees (2.04 dollars) up from 123 rupees a year earlier, underlining that the disruptive price wars in India's telecoms sector are now over. Source: Airtel statements. 

Africa Lifts Airtel

Bharti Airtel reported a 7% year-on-year rise in revenues on a comparable basis for the quarter ending September 30th to 211.3 billion Indian rupees (almost 3 billion US dollars). Its customer base declined 8% to 411 million, due to a 13% fall in India where Airtel is seeing intense competition. Still, revenues in India were up 3% to 153.6 billion rupees, while sales in Africa rose 13% to 853 million U.S. dollars.

In Africa, Airtel said the total customer base using the Airtel Money platform increased by almost 20% to 15.5 million. The total value of transactions on the Airtel money platform rose 35% year-on-year to 7.98 billion dollars in the quarter. Airtel Money revenue for the quarter was 79.3 million dollars, up 51%. Source: Airtel statement

Vodafone Seeks Deeper Engagement

Vodafone reported a 0.5% rise in organic service revenue (excluding handset financing) for the quarter ending September 30th, as a "good commercial and financial performance in most markets [was] offset by increased competition in Italy and Spain."

Vodafone said it plans to "drive growth in the Europe Consumer segment by developing deeper customer relationships, with a strong focus on our existing base. We intend to both cross-sell additional products (e.g., broadband, family SIMs, TV) and up-sell new experiences (including higher speeds with 4G Evo / 5G, low latency mobile gaming services and a wide range of consumer IoT devices)... We intend to launch 5G services in-line with leading local competitors during calendar 2019 and 2020, with an initial focus on dense urban areas. 5G’s improved spectral and energy efficiency supports up to a 10x reduction in the cost per Gigabyte, which will allow the group to limit the future growth in network operating costs despite strong expected traffic growth."

In emerging markets, Vodafone said it sees "a significant opportunity to grow in digital and financial services. M-Pesa, our African payments platform, has moved beyond its origins as a money transfer service, and now provides enterprise payments, financial services and merchant payment services for mobile commerce. Over 10 billion US dollars of payments are processed over the platform every month, across the seven African markets where M-Pesa services are active. We now have 35 million M-Pesa customers, and in [the six months to September 30th] M-Pesa grew revenues by 19.4% to 400 million euros. M-Pesa represented 12% of Emerging Consumer service revenues." Source: Vodafone statement

Quarter of Million Connections for Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio, India's all-4G mobile operator, reported a 50% year-on-year rise in operating revenue for the quarter ending September 30th to 92.4 billion Indian rupees (1.26 billion US dollars).  The growth was driven by a net increase of 37 million connections, taking the total to more than 252 million. Jio said that customers are consuming an average of 11 GB per month and making 761 minutes of voice calls per connection (using the VoLTE standard). Source: Reliance Industries presentation

Europe Offsets India for Vodafone

Vodafone reported a 4.1% year-on-year fall in group revenue to 23.1 billion euros for the six months ending September 30th, blaming the deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands and currency movements.  That figure doesn't include Vodafone India, which is now merging with rival Idea Cellular.  Vodafone India's service revenues were down 15.8% over the six month period. Vodafone said that group service revenue rose 1.3% on an organic basis in the quarter ending September 30th (excluding Vodafone Netherlands and Vodafone India) driven primarily by "our growth engines of mobile data, fixed/convergence and enterprise."

Vittorio Colao, CEO, commented: "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 (‘IoT’), cloud and fixed services ... In India competition remains intense. There are however signs of positive developments in the Indian market, with consolidation of smaller operators and recent price increases from the new entrant. ...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”; and the ‘Digital Vodafone’ programme designed to enhance our customers’ experience, increasing revenues and cost efficiency.” source: Vodafone statement

Vodafone Sees Some Stability in India

Vodafone reported a 2.2% year-on-year increase in service revenue on an organic basis for the quarter ending June 30. The rise was fuelled by a 7.9% increase in revenues from Africa, Middle East, Asia and Pacific, whereas Europe saw more muted growth of 0.8%.

Vittorio Colao, CEO, said: “Although competition in India remains intense, service revenues stabilised compared with the prior quarter. Our substantial investments in network leadership, an excellent customer experience and even greater ‘more-for-more’ propositions for customers are enabling us to monetise strong demand for mobile data. .. Our world-leading Internet of Things platform contributed to another quarter of solid growth in enterprise.” source: Vodafone statement

Vodafone Suffers Slowdown

Vodafone reported 1.5% year-on-year growth in service revenue on an organic basis for the quarter ending March 31, 2017. That was slower growth than in the preceding four quarters and Vodafone warned that European roaming regulation will curb future growth. The results were weighed down by weak performances in the UK and India, where Vodafone is facing intense competitive pressure and is merging its operations with those of Idea Cellular.

However, Vittorio Colao, Group CEO, sounded a bullish note, saying: "Sustained investment in network quality has provided the platform to offer more generous plans to our mobile customers in Europe, stabilising contract ARPU, and has allowed us to capture strong data growth in our emerging markets operations. We continue to be Europe’s fastest growing broadband provider, seizing the opportunities created by convergence and winning revenue market share, supported also by our Enterprise business which continues to outperform its peers."

For the financial the year to March 31, 2017, Vodafone reported 700 million euros of revenue from the Internet of Things. It also said it used data analytics to deliver 3.1 billion personalised offers in the financial year. Source: Vodafone presentation

New Competition in India Rocks Vodafone

Vodafone Group reported a 1.7% year-on-year rise in service revenue on an organic basis for the quarter ending December 31, lifted by 0.7% growth in Europe and 3.9% growth in Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP). Reported group revenue fell 3.9% to 13.69 billion British pounds (17.19 billion US dollars).

Vittorio Colao, CEO, said: "In AMAP, our strong organic performance in South Africa and Turkey was partially offset by India, where the sector is affected by free services from the new entrant. We anticipate intense competitive pressure in India in the fourth quarter and are taking a series of commercial actions, including the extension of 4G services to 17 leading circles. As announced earlier this week, we have also entered discussions with the Aditya Birla Group about an all-share merger of Vodafone India and Idea." source: Vodafone statement

Vodafone Europe Begins Bounce Back

Vodafone Group said its service revenue rose 2.3% year-on-year on an organic basis in the six months to September 30th. Vittorio Colao, Group CEO, said: "Europe [was] modestly ahead of our expectations - led by Germany and Italy ... Our substantial network investments and ‘more-for-more’ propositions have allowed us to capture opportunities from strong data demand... As Europe’s fastest-growing broadband operator, we are driving rapid uptake of our consumer fixed and TV services while our wholly converged enterprise business continues to outperform its peers.

"Competition in India has increased in the year, reducing revenue growth and profitability. We have responded to this changing competitive environment by strengthening our data and voice commercial offers and by focusing our participation in the recent spectrum auction on acquiring frequencies in the more successful and profitable areas of the country. Overall, we expect to sustain our underlying performance in the second half of the year and remain on track to meet our full-year objectives despite macroeconomic uncertainties." source: Vodafone statement

Digital TV Helps Drive Bharti Onwards and Upwards

Bharti Airtel reported a 8.4% year-on-year increase in revenues "on an underlying basis" to 255 billion Indian rupees (3.8 billion US dollars) for the quarter ending June 30th. In the previous quarter, growth was 10.1%.

The multinational operator said that revenues in India rose 10.3%, while growth in Africa was 3.8% on an underlying basis. In India, Bharti's mobile revenues rose 9.1%, while "homes" (DSL) revenue was up 11%, digital TV up 22% and Airtel Business 10.4%. source: Bharti statement

Vodafone Europe Shows Signs of Life

Vodafone reported a 1.8% year-on-year underlying increase in service revenues for the quarter ending March 31, compared with 1.5% for the full year to March 31. The growth was driven primarily by a strong performance in Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Total revenue for the financial year was 41 billion pounds (59.3 billion US dollars).

Vittorio Colao, group CEO, commented: "This has been a year of strong execution for the group, returning to organic growth in both revenue and EBITDA for the first time since 2008. We achieved the first quarter of positive revenue growth in Europe since December 2010, while growth in AMAP accelerated with strong performance in South Africa, Turkey and Egypt."

Vodafone reported that its 4G networks now cover 87% of the population in its European markets, having invested 47 billion pounds over the past three years in capital equipment, spectrum and acquisitions. source: Vodafone statement

VimpelCom Battles Emerging Market Headwinds

VimpelCom reported a 1% year-on-year increase in revenues to 2.3 billion US dollars on an organic basis for the fourth quarter of 2015. The organic growth rate for the whole calendar year was also 1% with annual revenues of 9.6 billion dollars.

VimpelCom said the slight uptick was driven by a positive performance in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, partially offset by negative performances in Algeria
and Kazakhstan.

VimpelCom, which operates in 14 markets including Russia, Italy, Algeria, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Laos, and Zimbabwe, forecast that service revenues will be flat or see slight growth in 2016. source: VimpelCom presentation

Enterprises Give Vodafone a Boost

The Vodafone Group reported a 1.4% year-on-year increase in service revenues in the quarter ending December 31st on an organic basis. That is up from 1.2% growth the previous quarter.  Vodafone added that the data traffic on its networks rose 68% year-on-year, fuelled by a 4.7 million increase in 4G subscribers during the quarter, taking the total to 34.8 million.

Vodafone's top line was also lifted by growth in its enterprise division, which now accounts for 28% of group revenue. source: Vodafone presentation

Vodafone Predicts Further Performance Improvement

Vodafone Group reported a 2.3% organic year-on-year increase in revenue in the quarter ending September 30th with service revenue up 1.2%. The UK-based group also signalled that it will cut back capital spending in the fiscal year beginning April 2016 after its Project Spring investment programme is completed.

Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said: "Service revenue in Europe declined 1.3% in H1, reflecting continued competitive pressures in a number of markets. However, revenue trends continue to improve, with Q2 service revenue down 1.0%* (Q1: -1.5%), the fifth consecutive quarter of easing rates of decline... and Southern Europe in particular showed a strong rate of recovery"

Vodafone said the overall performance of the group in the first half of the current financial year has been in line with its expectations, and it expects revenue and profitability trends to improve in the second half. source: Vodafone presentation

Emerging Markets Bolster Vodafone

Vodafone reported a 0.8% year-on-year increase in service revenue to 9.2 billion UK pounds on an organic basis in the first quarter, as a 6.1% increase in Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific offset a 1.5% decline in Europe.  Group revenue rose 3.3% on an organic basis to 10.1 billion UK pounds (15.7 billion US dollars), boosted by strong equipment sales.

Vodafone said: "In Europe, organic service revenue has continued to recover, declining 1.5% (Q4: -2.6%), supported by more stable pricing environments in many markets and an improved commercial performance, as well as a positive impact from the inclusion of KDG and Ono in organic growth rates." source: Vodafone statement

Vodafone Returns to Growth (Just)

Vodafone reported a 0.1% year-on-year organic rise in service revenues in the quarter ending March 31. In Europe organic service revenue fell more than 2%, offset by a 6% rise in AMAP (Asia, Middle East, Africa and Pacific) organic service revenue "led by strong customer growth and rising data penetration." For the year to March 31, group revenue declined almost 1% on an organic basis to 42.2 billion British pounds (62.6 billion US dollars).

Vittorio Colao, Group CEO, commented: “It has been a year of continued progress, culminating with a return to organic growth in Q4. We have seen increasing signs of stabilisation in many of our European markets, supported by improvements in our commercial execution and very strong demand for data." Source: Vodafone statement

For more analysis of Vodafone's financial performance and how it compares with its peers, see the report on Europe's big five telcos.

Vodafone Prepares to Bounce Back

Vodafone said its service revenue declined 0.4% year-on-year to 9.8 billion British pounds (14.9 billion US dollars) on an organic basis in the quarter ending December 31st. A 3% decline in Europe was partially offset by a 6% increase in its operations in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Pacific.  In Italy, service revenue fell 7% and in Spain 9%, but rose 15% in India and 12% in Turkey.

Vittorio Colao, CEO, said: “We have achieved another quarter of improving revenue trends in most of our major markets. Growth in India has accelerated again, driven by data. In Europe, improved commercial execution in both mobile and fixed over the last few quarters, combined with strong data demand and a more stable pricing environment, is supporting the steady recovery in the top line. Our recent cable acquisitions continue to perform well, with good progress made on integration."

Vodafone reported a 39% year-on-year increase in capital expenditure to 2.1 billion pounds in the quarter. It now claims 4G coverage of 65% of the population in the European countries where it operates. source: Vodafone statement

Vodafone Sees Stabilisation Ahead in Europe

Vodafone reported a 3% year-on-year fall in revenues, on an organic basis, in the six months ending September 30th to 20.75 billion British pounds (32.96 billion US dollars). In the quarter ending September 30th, service revenues fell in most of its European operations on an organic basis, but rose by double digits in Ghana, India and Turkey, excluding the impact of regulated cuts to mobile termination rates.

Vittorio Colao, group CEO, said: “There is growing evidence of stabilisation in a number of our European markets, supported by improvements in our commercial execution and very strong demand for data. ... Customers are showing an increasing propensity to trade up to bigger data allowances as a result  of the 4G experience. In India, growth has accelerated, stimulated by investment in our 3G network....Today in Europe, only 6% of our customers are using 4G. In the next 18 months, we will reach 90% 4G coverage in Europe, giving us a great opportunity to increase penetration, stimulate  data usage and grow customer spend.” source: Vodafone statement

Bharti Looks Forward to Digital India

Bharti Airtel reported a 7% year-on-year increase in revenue to 228.45 billion Indian rupees (3.72 billion US dollars) in the quarter ending September 30. In India and south Asia revenues were up 12% (boosted by a 23.5% increase in digital TV sales), while revenues rose 6.4% in Africa, as measured in local currencies.

In a statement, Mr. Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said: “Airtel's revenue growth in India has further accelerated to 12.3% in Q2. We continue to see strong momentum in mobile data which has grown by 74% in this quarter. Airtel's pioneering 4G roll-out in 15 cities is now witnessing stronger customer acceptance. On the regulatory front, the recent TRAI recommendations on making more contiguous spectrum available in the upcoming auctions have the potential of transforming the industry. We believe that this is critical to realise the exciting vision of "Digital India" that the Government has articulated."

Airtel said data revenues now account for 10.1% of overall Africa revenues up from 6.6% in the corresponding quarter last year. It also reported that active Airtel Money customers have risen to 5.3 million, with the total value of transactions crossing 3.3 billion US dollars during the quarter ending September 30th. source: Airtel statements

Vodafone Shrinks Further in Europe

Vodafone said its service revenue fell 4% year-on-year on an organic basis in the quarter ending June 30th to 9.4 billion British pounds (15.95 billion US dollars). Service revenue fell 8.7% in Europe, more than offsetting a 7.6% rise in the rest of the world.

Continuing to invest heavily in LTE and fibre, Vodafone said it had 22,900 4G base stations in Europe at the end of June, covering 52% of the population, up from 18,200 at the end of March. source: Vodafone presentation