Vodafone's growth slows as Germany goes into reverse

By Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) -Vodafone reported a slow down in top-line growth on Thursday, ending four quarters of accelerating improvement, after law changes related to selling TV services in Germany caused its largest market to go into reverse.

The European and African mobile operator said the decline in Germany was expected and it was sticking to its guidance for the full year. Service revenue rose 5.4% in the first quarter.

Chief Executive Margherita Della Valle said revenue was growing strongly in Africa and Turkey, while in Europe lower inflation was slowing revenue growth and accelerating core earnings growth.

"We continue to progress our transactions in Italy and the UK as well as the broader transformation of Vodafone, focused on customer experience, business growth and operational execution in Germany," she said.

She said the performance would improve in the second half onwards.

Shares in Vodafone fell 2% to trade around the same level as they were at the start of 2024.

In Germany, Vodafone has been impacted by the end of selling TV in bulk to apartment blocks.

Della Valle said 2.6 million customers had been secured under the new teams, and she remained confident that it would keep around half of its TV customer base.

She has simplified Vodafone since she permanently took the top job in April 2023. Operations in Spain and Italy have been sold, a merger with Hutchison's Three in Britain has been agreed and around 11,000 job cuts have been announced.

On the Three deal, she said talks with Britain's competition regulator were going well and a decision was expected around the end of the year.

Vodafone expects to reports core earnings of around 11 billion euros ($11.92 billion) and free cash flow of at least 2.4 billion euros for the year to end-March 2025.

($1 = 0.9228 euros)

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by William James and Miral Fahmy)