Vodafone Group's India operations, along with its operations in South Africa and Turkey helped the telecom giant report revenue growth, even as revenue declines were reported from its South Europe operations

Vodafone's India revenue grew 20 per cent on a year-on-year basis, for the third quarter ended December 2011.

Revenue rose to €1024 million, from €963 million in the same year-ago quarter. Taking foreign exchange rate changes into account, India revenue rose 6.3 per cent.

Income from the India operations grew as the customer base as well as incoming and outgoing voice minutes rose. There was a 46.4 per cent growth in data revenue, said a statement from Vodafone Group. “Whilst the market remains highly competitive, the effective rate per minute increased slightly compared to Q2 following the penetration of recent price rises into the customer base,” it said.

Data customer base

The company's data customer base in India stood at 31.2 million as at end December 2011.

Its mobile customer base was 147.7 million, 95.2 per cent of them being prepaid subscribers.

For Vodafone, its India customer base is only a little smaller than its entire customer base in Europe of 149.9 million. For the Vodafone group as a whole service revenue growth was 0.9 per cent during the quarter. “We are continuing to make progress in the key strategic areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets,” said Mr Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone Group.

Bloomberg adds: The total third-quarter service revenue gain also trails Vodafone's own long-term forecast. The company in November 2010 said service revenue will grow in the range of 1-4 per cent in the next three years. The company today reiterated its full-year forecast for adjusted operating profit of £11.4 billion ($18.1 billion) to £11.8 billion.

>kripram@thehindu.co.in

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