Vodafone reports an 11% fall in net profit in year to end-March

Vodafone Group has reported a slight rise in its full-year revenues which rose by 1.2 per cent to GBP46.4 billion (US$73.4 billion), while net profit fell by 11 per cent to GBP7 billion.

EBITDA was down 1.3 per cent at GBP14.5 billion; EBITDA margin 31.2 per cent, down 0.8 percentage points (0.6 percentage points before restructuring costs).

Operating profit fell by 2.4 per cent to GBP11.53 billion, with the decline in adjusted operating profit due to the sale of the company’s 44 per cent stake in the French mobile network, SFR.

For the year ahead, adjusted operating profit is expected to be in the range of GBP11.1 billion to GBP11.9 billion, reflecting the weaker euro offset by continued profit growth from Verizon Wireless.

The telco ended the period with a total of 404.7 million subscribers, up 33.81 million users, or 8.4 per cent. Inclusive of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, its total subscriber base stood at 446.5 million at the end of March 2012, up from 410.7 a year earlier.

Vittorio Colao, Group CEO, commented: "Our focus on the key growth areas of data, emerging markets and enterprise is positioning us well in a difficult macroeconomic environment. Our commercial performance and our ability to leverage scale continue to be strong, enabling us to gain or hold market share in most of our key markets, and reduce the rate of margin decline."