Vodafone reported an acceleration in first-quarter top line
growth on Monday, driven by strong demand in Britain and improvements in
Germany, Italy and Spain, marking a positive start for new chief executive
Margherita Della Valle.
The European and African telecoms group also said it had
appointed former SAP chief financial officer Luka Mucic to the same role at Vodafone,
beginning on September 1.
He will replace Della Valle who took on the top job
permanently in April. She said on Monday that service revenue had improved
"across almost all of our markets", as it reported a 3.7 percent rise
for the group.
The decline in Germany, Vodafone's biggest market, more than
halved quarter on quarter to 1.3 percent, as broadband price rises partially
offset the impact of customer losses over the last 18 months, the company said.
Growth in service revenue in Britain, where Vodafone
announced the merger of its operation with Hutchison's rival network Three last
month, accelerated to 5.7 percent, boosted by strong growth in consumer and
annual price increases.
In Italy, improved demand from businesses helped reduce the
decline to -1.6 percent, from -2.7 percent in the previous quarter, it said,
while Spain saw a smaller improvement to -3.0 percent from -3.7 percent.
Della Valle has been tasked with simplifying the group and
stemming the decline in some of its biggest markets in Europe, which have been
hit by fierce competition. © Reuters