BERLIN: Vodafone Germany reported a return to service revenue growth in the final quarter of its fiscal year, growing revenue 1.6 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.462 billion in the three months to March, thanks to improvements in consumer mobile and fixed trends and an accounting reclassification in the fixed-line business. Mobile service revenue rose 0.3 percent to EUR 1.505 billion, and fixed revenue increased 3.8 percent to EUR 957 million, led by 9.8 percent growth in the cable business. Over the full fiscal year, revenue fell 0.5 percent to EUR 10.626 billion, while EBITDA rose 2.1 percent to EUR 3.462 billion, thanks to synergies and cost reductions from the Kabel Deutschland takeover.
Vodafone said competition in the mobile market intensified in Q4 especially in indirect channels, leading to a slowdown in contract customer additions to 49,000 and a loss of 104,000 prepaid users. In total it had 30.334 million mobile customers at the end of the fiscal year, down 2.0 percent from a year earlier. Of the total, 66.9 percent were postpaid, up from 64.8 percent a year ago. Mobile ARPU was up year-on-year but fell versus the previous quarter to EUR 15.1, amid pressure especially in the enterprise market. Contract ARPU dropped to EUR 24.9 from EUR 25.4 in Q3.
The number of fixed customers grew 6.9 percent year-on-year and 2.4 percent over the quarter to 5.825 million. That includes an increase of 96,000 cable broadband customers and 38,000 new DSL subscribers in Q4. Broadband ARPU was down year-on-year due to the promotions in the market, with improvements in cable offset by DSL declines, although the pace of decline began to moderate during H2, Vodafone said. The integration of Kabel Deutschland was completed during the year, and Vodafone said it now sees further upside potential in synergies over the longer term. The Vodafone Red One integrated fixed-mobile offer introduced in November had 54,000 customers at the end of March.
