Vodafone Group Pretax Profit Falls, Reflecting Previous Disposals —Update
By Najat Kantouar
Vodafone Group reported a decline in pretax profit and revenue, reflecting the disposals of various units in the prior financial year as well as adverse exchange-rate movements.
The U.K. telecommunications company said Tuesday that pretax profit for the year ended March 31 fell to 1.62 billion euros ($1.75 billion) from EUR13.07 billion the previous financial year, when it sold Vantage Towers, Vodafone Hungary and Vodafone Ghana.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization after leases----which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--declined to EUR11.02 billion from EUR12.42 billion.
Group revenue fell 2.5% to EUR36.72 billion from EUR37.67 billion, reflecting adverse exchange-rate movements as well as the previous year's disposals.
Service revenue--a closely watched metric in the telecom sector--declined to EUR29.91 billion from EUR30.32 billion.
Germany--which represents 30% of group service revenue--returned to growth with service revenue increasing by 0.2% for the full year and 0.6% for fourth quarter. However, adjusted Ebitdaal remained under pressure, declining by 5.8% due to higher energy and other inflationary costs.
The board maintained a total dividend of 9.0 European cents a share, including a final dividend of 4.45 European cents a share.
Looking ahead, Vodafone still expects to report adjusted Ebitdaal and adjusted free cash flow of EUR11.0 billion and EUR2.6 billion respectively, excluding the financial results from Vodafone Spain and Vodafone Italy.
Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 14, 2024 03:53 ET (07:53 GMT)
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