Vodafone Group: Third quarter 2020/21 financial year trading update

Vodafone Group has reported its results for the third quarter of the 2020/21 financial year, showing a return to service revenue growth.

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Resilient trading performance, with service revenue growth of 0.4%* (Q2: -0.4%*).

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Continued commercial momentum, despite further lockdown measures.

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Germany service revenue growth of 1.0%* (Q2: -0.1%*), with growth across all segments in the market.

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Deepening customer engagement with year-to-date Europe mobile contract churn 1.1 percentage points lower year-on-year.

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Strong demand for high-speed connectivity, with 330,000 Next Generation Networks (NGN) broadband customer additions in Europe during the quarter, bringing year-to-date total NGN additions to over 1.1 million.

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Underlying trends excluding the impact from lower roaming and visitors were broadly similar quarter-on-quarter.

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Reaffirming FY21 guidance with Adjusted EBITDA expected to be between €14.4 – €14.6bn and free cash flow of at least €5bn (pre-spectrum and restructuring).

* Nick Read, Group Chief Executive, commented: *

“I am pleased the Group returned to service revenue growth in Q3 as a result of the continued commercial momentum across our business, including our largest market Germany. Our good trading performance underscores our confidence in the outlook for the full year. We have made further progress on our strategic priorities, including the IPO of Vantage Towers in early 2021, which remains firmly on track and will now include our 50% shareholding in the UK towers joint venture with Telefonica.

“Our networks have successfully delivered another quarter of record data traffic as many countries continue to endure COVID-19 lockdowns and customers depend on our services. We have achieved this while further reducing our carbon footprint and we are making fast progress towards our important target of having our European networks wholly powered by renewable electricity by July this year.

“I continue to be proud of the hard work of my colleagues, and that of the industry more broadly, who have kept societies connected and supported key sectors such as education and healthcare. Vodafone has now contributed over €150 million since the start of the pandemic, through direct contributions and in-kind services to those in need, and we will continue to help society recover and build back stronger.”

Further details about the Q3 FY21 trading update are available on the Vodafone Group website .