Vodafone homelessness revenues fall as coronavirus pandemic reduces travel

Europe's largest mobile operator, Vodafone, reported lower roaming revenues on Tuesday as the coronavirus slows global travel, but stocks rose after holding its dividend and cutting stocks. losses.

"In April, we saw homelessness in Europe drop from 65 to 75 percent," said Vodafone. declaration It also showed that customers were buying more data and adding landlines when they were blocked.

Regarding the outlook, the British group warned, however, that its markets would be hit "significantly" by the deadly spike in COVID-19.

"The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our markets, although uncertain, is likely to be significant," said Vodafone.

"We are experiencing a direct impact on our roaming revenues from the reduction in international travel and we also expect economic pressures to affect our customers' revenues over time."

However, Vodafone said mobile data has increased by 15% and that landline usage has increased by 70% in some markets.

In response to Tuesday's annual results, Vodafone's share price jumped 7.5% to 121.52 pence to reach the top of the London FTSE 100 rankings.

"On the one hand, there has been an inevitable increase in the use of data traffic that plays in the hands of the group, and the efficiency and availability of its networks are gaining additional importance in moments like these, "said analyst Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.

"At the same time, the decline in international travel has had an impact on Vodafone's roaming revenues, while the real threat of cyber attacks has also increased in recent months, both individuals and businesses are the target . "

Hunter added: "The company continues to be a tremendous cash generator, and the fact that it has kept the dividend will be a welcome relief for increasingly hungry income seekers."

At the same time, Vodafone added that it expected "a continuing increase in the volume and scale of financially motivated cyber attacks" that emerged from the pandemic, adding that as a result, it had "increased" his security.

The group also revealed that the annual net losses had improved considerably after the non-recurrence of exceptional charges.

It suffered an after-tax loss of 455 million euros (about 3,700 million rupees) in its 2019/2020 fiscal year until the end of March.

However, this marked a major improvement over a loss of 7.6 billion euros in 2018/19, when it had a heavy blow on the sale of Indian assets.

Vodafone had also suffered a huge reduction in the value of the assets.

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