Vodafone - Don't Believe the newspapers

Vodafone delivered good 1st quarter results in line with my strategy. The newspapers have said it was bad and the market has dropped about 3% today. I think they are all missing the picture. Yes Europe is bad and thats a key area for Vodafone, but the USA drives the future still despite China, and Verizon the 50/50 joint venture is pulling ahead in the USA driven by smart phones and video to the hand. Europe and the rest of the world is lagging but will catch up. Look at the figures, the biggest GROWTH area reported today was in DATA at 17%. This is a great company, a global giant and pays super dividends. They are just getting better and will see huge growth from mobile over the next few years. Results below.


Group service revenue increased 0.6%*
; excluding mobile termination rate (‘MTR’) cuts growth was 2.3%*
 
• Continued strong service revenue growth in emerging markets: Vodacom 5.7%*
, India 16.2%*
 and Turkey
18.7%*
• Mixed trends in Europe: service revenue growth strong in Germany at 4.2%*
; UK -0.8%*
 due to increased
competition and a weaker economy; conditions in Italy (-7.7%*
) and Spain (-10.0%*
) remain challenging
• Verizon Wireless (‘VZW’) service revenue grew 8.2%*
driven by data
• Group data revenue grew 17.1%*
 reflecting an increase in Europe smartphone penetration to 28.7%
• £0.9 billion of free cash flow after capital investment of £1.1 billion
• Good progress in strengthening our business: proposed acquisitions of Cable & Wireless Worldwide and
TelstraClear; network sharing agreements in five markets
• Net debt reduced to £22.7 billion after receipt of final SoftBank proceeds (£1.5 billion) and £0.8 billion
of share buybacks (£6.8 billion share buyback programmes almost complete)
• Full year outlook confirmed