Vodafone Group reported 5.5 percent drop in revenue of €21.8 billion and loss of €7.8 billion in the first half of fiscal 2018-19.
The loss was mainly due to a loss on the disposal of Vodafone India following the completion of the merger with Idea Cellular and impairments.
Vodafone earlier combined its India business with smaller rival Idea Cellular to lead the India telecom market and reduce competition from Reliance Jio and Airtel.
Vodafone Group’s organic service revenue rose 0.8 percent in H1 as compared with 0.5 percent increase in Q2 with good commercial and financial performance in most markets offset by increased competition in Italy and Spain.
Vodafone added 384K fixed broadband customers and 616K convergence customers. Vodafone Business grew 1 percent, led by strong growth in IoT.
Vodafone said the company is on track to reduce operating expenses for the third year running.
Nick Read, group CEO of Vodafone, said: “My new strategic priorities focus on driving greater consistency of commercial execution, accelerating digital transformation, radically simplifying our operating model and generating returns from our infrastructure assets.”
