John Delaney
Vodafone's new KPIs: no surprises, and a good thing too
Vodafone reported its latest set of KPIs this morning, for the quarter ending 31 December 2007. Group revenues are up 15.8% at £9.2bn, with the customer base up 10.8m to 252.3bn. In the Europe group, service revenues are up 2.0%, with data revenues up 35.5%. In the EMAPA group, service revenues grew by 48.1%. The company reiterated the increased guidance for the current year which it announced with its half-yearly results in November.Comment: Here's another set of quarterly KPIs that bears out Vodafone's message to its shareholders: after the turmoil of the mid-2000s, the company is now being managed in a way that can deliver reliable performance, with the occasional dash of flair to keep things exciting. In Europe: solid growth, in excess of expectations, driven by continued strong performance in the strategically crucial area of mobile data.In the US: no sign yet in Vodafone's numbers of any significant impact from the economic slowdown there, although this is a space that we will watch carefully in the months ahead.In emerging markets: India and Turkey come on stream in no uncertain terms, and hints are dropped about more high-growth markets to come (cue: yesterday's rumours about Bangladesh)Outside mobile: 13% of group revenues now come from 'total communications products', Voda-speak for broadband, PC/mobile integration and advertising. Most of this is broadband, and the growth here was mostly driven by the Tele2 acquisitions. We still think Vodafone could be doing a better job of exploiting broadband.Our last comment on Vodafone's quarterly KPIs was 'steady as she goes'. There's nothing in this new set of data that causes us to diverge from that view.
