Vodafone Group's revenue declined by 2.6% to €43.8 billion for FY 21, as good underlying momentum and the benefit from the acquisition of Liberty Global’s assets in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe wwas offset by the effects of COVID-19 on roaming and visitor revenue, as well as foreign exchange movements. The Group made a profit for the financial year of €0.5 billion (FY20: loss of €0.5 billion). The profit increase was partly driven by higher operating profit and the recognition of mark-to-market gains (FY21: €1.1 billion, FY20: losses of €1.1billion).
Nick Read, Group Chief Executive, commented: “I am pleased that we achieved full year results in line with our guidance and we exited the year with accelerating service revenue growth acrossthe business, with a particularly good performance in our largest market, Germany. We have delivered on the first phase of ourstrategy to reshape Vodafone as a stronger connectivity provider – including the simplification of the group to Europe and Africa, the successful IPO of Vantage Towers (€13.2 billion market capitalisation),the fast roll out of our next generationmobile and fixed networks,share gain in broadband subscription and continued reduction in customer churn.Our digitaltransformation initiatives have generated savings of €0.5 billion over the year and the integration of the assets acquired from Liberty Global is well ahead of plan."
Some highlights:
- mobile contract customer loyalty improved by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year;
- added 1.4 million NGN broadband customers and 44 million homes are now passed with 1 gigabit capable fixed-line network in Europe;
- launched 5G in 240 cities across 10 of our European markets;
- accelerated a series of costsaving activities, resulting in a €0.5 billion net reduction in operating expenditure in Europe and Common Functions;
- secured mobile wholesale agreements with PostePay in Italy and Asda Mobile in the UK; and
- completed the IPO of Vantage Towers March 2021,with a market capitalisation of €13.2 billion as at 17 May 2021.
