Vodafone Announces Fiscal Q1 2024 Revenue, Names New CFO

UK-based telecommunications group Vodafone Group Plc said its fiscal Q1 2024 revenue declined from the previous year’s figures. The revenue for the quarter, which ended on June 30th, was 10.74 billion euros, compared to the 11.28 billion euros that came in a year earlier. On the other hand, the group’s service revenue increased 3.7% on an organic basis YoY during the three months. Also, the service revenue grew by 1.8% from what the company recorded in fiscal Q4 2023. Apart from improving from the previous quarter, Vodafone exceeded analysts’ expectations in its fiscal Q1 2024 service revenue. The average estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey was 2.9%. However, the new CEO Margherita Della Valle is paying close attention to its enterprise division and African operation, which has fueled the business.

Speaking on the fiscal Q1 2024 financial performance, the Vodafone chief executive said:

“As we progress our plans to transform Vodafone, we have achieved a better service revenue performance across almost all of our markets. We have delivered particularly strong trading in our Business segment and returned to service revenue growth in Europe. Looking ahead, we have taken the first steps of our action plan focused on customers, simplicity and growth, but we still have much more still to do.”

Vodafone in Q1 2024

Moving on from the Q1 2024 result, Vodafone reiterated its guidance for fiscal 2024. The company expects adjusted earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the fiscal year to be around EUR 13.3 billion. It also said the expected adjusted free cash flow is EUR3.3 billion. The CEO said the team has made efforts to achieve its action plan concerning “customers, simplicity, and growth.”

As Vodafone announced its performance in fiscal Q1 2024, the company separately announced the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer. It named Luka Mucic the new CFO and Executive Director, effective September 1st, 2023. Before now, the new chief financial officer was the Chief Operating Officer of SAP SE between 2014 and 2017. He also served as the CFO of SAP from 2014 until the end of March 2023.

Della Valle announced in March that Vodafone was dismissing 11,000 workers to maintain profits. The decision was to affect more than 10% of the company’s total headcount of 100,000. The company forecasted flat profit growth at the time, noting that the job cuts would spread across three years. When the announcement of the most significant staff reduction in the company’s history hit the news, its shares fell more than 2% as the market opened. Just as Vodafone emphasized in the fiscal Q1 2024, Della Valle said its priorities were customers, simplicity, and growth.