LISBON: Vodafone Portugal saw its organic decline in service revenues slow somewhat in the last quarter of its fiscal year, to 3.4 percent. The operators said it continues to see a decline in mobile service revenue driven by convergence pricing pressure and intense competition, partially offset by strong fixed revenue growth. For the second half of the year to March, the operator reported revenues of GBP 367 million in Portugal, down from GBP 429 million a year earlier, while EBITDA dipped to GBP 132 million from GBP 133 million. Capital expenditure rose to GBP 156 million from GBP 103 million a year ago.
Vodafone Portugal ended March with a total 5.043 million mobile customers, down by 164,000 from three months earlier. The share of prepaid continued to decrease, reaching 68.6 percent compared to 77.6 a year earlier. ARPU of EUR 11.6 was up slightly from EUR 11.5 a year ago but down from EUR 11.9 in the previous quarter. Voice and messaging traffic were also down on the previous quarter, but data traffic rose strongly to 6,839 TB from 5,587. Vodafone reported 49.1 percent of customers with smartphones, up by 10 percentage points from a year earlier, and just over 68 percent of smartphone owners had data subscriptions.
In the fixed broadband market, the operator added 31,000 customers in the last quarter, for a total 330,000 at end-March. Thanks to its network-sharing deal with Portugal Telecom, its fibre network now passes 1.6 million homes.
