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Vodafone Announces Quarterly Results, Increases Dividend

12:05 am on May 30, 2007 | Category: Business, Corporate, Wireless

The world’s largest mobile phone provider, Vodafone Group, announced weaker than expected first quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) yesterday, but was able to boost investor confidence with an 11.4% hike in dividends.

Vodafone’s EBITDA rose to Â£11.96 billion in the first quarter of 2007, on revenues of Â£31.1 billion, but fell slightly short of average forecasts. A panel of Reuters analysts had predicted earnings of Â£12.13 billion and Â£31.385 in revenue.

“We expect Europe to remain challenging,” commented Vodafone CEO, Arun Sarin, acknowledging tough competition and declining mobile voice and data rates in many European markets. “We have got good growth drivers but, equally, these growth drivers are being offset by pricing and regulatory pressure.”

In the coming months, Vodafone will be banking on revenue growth from its businesses in Africa, Asia Pacific, India, eastern Europe, and the Middle East, to offset any decline in its core western European territories.

Shares in Vodafone were up an impressive 8.3p, or 5.48% yesterday, to close at 159.7p, largely driven by the dividend increase.

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