Vodafone Misses Quarterly Revenue

Vodafone (NASDAQ: VOD) announced on Thursday that it had missed quarterly revenue forecasts as a result of a tough quarter in Spain and Italy that overshadowed strong performances in northern Europe, as well as emerging markets.According to Reuters, British-based VOD is the latest in a long line of companies warning that austerity-hit consumers and businesses in southern Europe are cutting back on spending, and it would seem that the cell phones are one of the first things to be put down.Despite the results, VOD's outlook for the year remains unchanged and it said that group organic service revenue from the provision of ongoing services to customers was up 0.9 percent, compared with the analyst forecast of 1.1 percent.Vodafone is the first of the big European operators to report its results, and it confirmed that revenues had been hit by weak consumer confidence in Spain, Italy and Britain. Another factor that came up is that corporate clients had been forced to cut back on travelling over the last three months of 2011 due to the floundering economy.Liberum analyst Mark James told Reuters that, “Our view remains that Vodafone is the best of a bad bunch. Better value, better run and more shareholder friendly than most of the European telco incumbents where ...

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