Vodafone Group saw its full year profit more than double due to strong growth in Asia, which helped offset declines elsewhere.
The company ended the fiscal 2009 (ending on March 31st) with 8.65 billion pounds ($12.5 billion) profit, which is way up from 3.08 billion pounds a year earlier. Revenues, on the other hand, rose 8.4% to 44.5 billion pounds.
Region wise, revenues in Europe fell 3.5% and 1.2% in Africa. On Asia Pacific Middle East income, however, swelled 9.8 percent, with India leading the way with a 14.7% in service revenue. In the U.S., Verizon Wireless, which is 45% owned by Vodafone, posted a 6% increase in full-year revenue.
However, these figures haven’t impressed Morten Singleton, analyst at Collins Stewart, who suggested Vodafone’s shares were “one to avoid.” He said that organic revenue trends are barely improving and profitability is hardly moving despite the early completion of the 1 billion pounds cost-efficiency program.
Vodafone’s Chief Executive Vittorio Colao noted that the company is now generating a third of its revenue from services other than mobile voice communications…
[Via: AP]