Vodafone Group has revealed the reasons for poor revenue performance and investments in the third quarter.

The UK-based telecom operator said its revenue fell 3.6 percent to €11.8 billion in Q3 fiscal 2018 due to deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands and forex movements.

Service revenue of Vodafone Group was €10.2 billion (–6.1 percent) in the third quarter ended December 31, 2017.

Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said: “Data usage continues to grow strongly, and we now passed the 100 million 4G customer milestone. We made strong progress with our fixed and convergence strategy, achieving our best ever quarter for customer growth in high speed broadband in Europe.”

India

Vodafone India’s service revenue fell 23.1 percent in Q3 as against 17.8 percent drop in Q2 due to price competition from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.

Vodafone India faced 29.2 percent decline in interconnection revenues following an MTR cut on 1 October.

Prepaid ARPU fell 28 percent against 24 percent dip in Q2 – reflecting customer adoption of unlimited packages, drag from longer tariff validity periods, and telecom regulatory pressure in India.

Vodafone India added 5.1 million wireless customers in Q3 against 4.5 million dip in Q2 to 212.5 million. Active data customer base grew by 2.2 million to 69.9 million, supported by strong growth in mobile broadband subscribers of 6.5 million.

Vodafone India achieved adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.1 percent in Q3, reflecting cost control. The Indian telecom business of Vodafone added 19,300 data sites during the third quarter as part of network expansion strategy.

Global business

Vodafone Group said data traffic on its global telecom networks increased 61 percent with Europe showing 59 percent and AMAP 64 percent increase. Indian data traffic increased 5-fold, following a decline in data prices. 4G customer based rose 57 percent to 105 million, achieving a quarterly increase of 11.5 million.

Vodafone has 15.7 million broadband customers including 9.3 million using Internet service over fibre and cable. Vodafone has 9.7 million TV customers. Fixed line business contributes 25 percent of service revenues. Europe’s fixed line business contributed 29 percent revenue in Q3.

Vodafone’s business service contributes 29 percent of service revenue. Enterprise business grew service revenues 0.4 percent against 0.5 percent in Q2, supported by global network and product set.

IoT business revenue of Vodafone rose 18.8 percent, primarily driven by 34 percent increase in SIM connections.

Vodacom

Service revenue of Vodacom, which has a strong presence in Africa, rose 5.3 percent in Q3 against 3.4 percent in Q2, supported by 1.1 million customer additions and 8.7 percent data revenue growth.

Vodacom has 44.3 million customers, up 16.3 percent year-on-year. Data revenue represents 42 percent of total service revenue. Vodacom achieved 77 percent 4G population coverage.

Vodacom’s bundle strategy is driving revenue growth, with data bundle sales up 53.8 percent from 12.5 million customers, up 24.2 percent. Data customer base rose 6.4 percent after adding 598,000 customers. Data usage increased 42 percent.

Baburajan K