Shares in Vodafone up by 4%

The Vodafone share price (LON:VOD) rose by over 4% on Monday’s market opening after the company revealed a resilient trading performance for Q3. 

The telecommunication company’s service revenue has increased by 0.4% to €9.4bn.

This figure follows a 0.4% fall during the previous quarter of the financial year.

The group attributed its return to service revenue growth to “continued commercial momentum” which came despite further lockdown measures.

Vodafone saw its service revenue grow by 1% across all segments in Germany, the country’s largest market, up from a fall of 0.1% during Q2.

Whilst Vodafone’s alternative measure of service revenue grew, reported total revenue fell 4.7% to €11.2bn.

Nick Read, group chief executive of Vodafone, praised the company’s return to revenue growth and looked ahead to 2021 with an optimistic perspective. 

“I am pleased the Group returned to service revenue growth in Q3 as a result of the continued commercial momentum across our business, including our largest market Germany. Our good trading performance underscores our confidence in the outlook for the full year,” Read said.

Read attributed Vodafone’s record data traffic to lockdowns which increased reliance on the company’s services. He also reaffirmed the goal of Vodafone’s European network to be wholly powered by renewable electricity by July 2021. 

“Our networks have successfully delivered another quarter of record data traffic as many countries continue to endure COVID-19 lockdowns and customers depend on our services. We have achieved this while further reducing our carbon footprint and we are making fast progress towards our important target of having our European networks wholly powered by renewable electricity by July this year.”

Mobile call time rose by half after the first lockdown as people in the UK spent more time speaking on the phone.