Vodafone Ireland sees revenue rise as parent reports slowdown

Vodafone Ireland revenue recorded a 1.7 per cent rise in service revenue from €235 million to €238.6 million in its first quarter in contrast to its parent, which reported a slowdown in sales growth during the same three-month period.

The largest mobile operator in the State said it added 12,000 contract customers during the quarter while the number of fixed broadband subscribers it has remained steady at 263,000. Vodafone also said data usage increased by 40.7 per cent year on year to more than 17.8 petabytes of data.

Meanwhile, Siro, Vodafone's joint venture with the ESB, has now passed more than 160,000 premises and is live in 30 towns, the operator added.

Tough trading in Italy and Spain took the shine off the final set of results delivered by the company's parent's boss Vittorio Colao on Wednesday.

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Organic service revenue grew by just 0.3 per cent due to increased competition in Italy and Spain and an intense price war in India.

“The group’s overall performance, including good progress in reducing absolute operating costs for the third year running, provides us with the confidence to reiterate our outlook for the year,” Mr Colao said.

Finance director Nick Read is to take over as chief executive from Mr Colao in October. The Italian is seen as having transformed the group during his time at the helm. Among the many things he achieved was taking Vodafone out of the United States with a $130 billion exit from a joint venture with Verizon and agreeing to merge its operations in India with Idea Cellular.

In one of his last acts for the company earlier this year, he helped strike a €18.4 billion deal to buy Liberty Global’s cable TV and broadband networks in Germany and eastern Europe. Additional reporting: Reuters