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Vodafone Posts Half-Year Profits of Â£3.29-Billion

2:28 am on November 14, 2007 | Category: Business, Corporate, Telecom Services, Wireless

The world’s biggest wireless carrier, Vodafone Group, raised its sales and profit forecasts yesterday, after reporting significant subscriber growth in India and Turkey, as well as strong mobile data revenues throughout Europe.

Vodafone posted net income of Â£3.29 billion ($6.8 billion) for the six-month period ending on September 30, compared with a loss of Â£5.1 billion in the same period a year earlier. This surpassed average estimates of Â£3.03 billion in a recent Bloomberg News survey of analysts.

Revenue, meanwhile, increased 9% over last year to Â£17 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of Â£16.9 billion. Vodafone had a worldwide total of 241 million customers at the end of September.

â€œThis totally vindicates (CEO, Arun) Sarin’s strategy,â€ commented head researcher, Adam Steiner, of SVG Capital PLC. â€œThe good news is data, Turkey, and India.â€

Vodafone gained a presence in India — the world’s fastest-growing wireless market — in May, when it acquired a majority stake in the country’s number-three mobile phone carrier, Hutchisson Essar. The $11.1 billion acquisition was seen as risky at the time, but is already beginning to pan out for the wireless giant, earning Chief Executive, Arun Sarin, some much-deserved praise.

â€œThe talk about Sarin being under pressureâ€ has stopped, Steiner commented. â€œA couple more of these results and he can leave a hero.â€

Vodafone has adjusted its forecasts for the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2008. Profit is now expected to total between Â£9.5 billion and Â£9.9 billion for the year, on revenue of Â£34.5 billion to Â£35.1 billion.

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