Investors piled in on Vodafone (VOD) on Wednesday after the mobile and broadband group reported organic service revenue returned to growth in the third quarter.
The stock jumped 5%, topping the FTSE 100 leaderboard, as investors cheered a rise of 0.4% organic service revenue increase, soundly beating analyst’ expectations for a fall of 0.1%. Vodafone also issued a reasonably confident outlook.
Vodafone shares rose around 6p to 133.92p, the highest they’ve been since last summer.
Revenue for the three months to 31 December decreased to €11.2 billion, down from €11.75 billion year-on-year. Overall Services revenue, a closely watched measure, fell 3.9% to €9.36 billion.
NO ROOM TO ROAM
Customers aren't spending as much on global roaming due to travel restrictions designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Vodafone said its underlying trends, excluding the impact from lower roaming and visitors, were broadly similar quarter-on-quarter.
It reaffirmed guidance for the full year of adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of between €14.4 billion and €14.6 billion and free cash flow of at least €5 billion.
‘I am pleased the group returned to service revenue growth in the third quarter as a result of the continued commercial momentum across our business, including our largest market Germany’, chief executive Nick Read said.
‘Our good trading performance underscores our confidence in the outlook for the full year.’
