Vodafone Europe Shows Signs of Life

Vodafone reported a 1.8% year-on-year underlying increase in service revenues for the quarter ending March 31, compared with 1.5% for the full year to March 31. The growth was driven primarily by a strong performance in Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Total revenue for the financial year was 41 billion pounds (59.3 billion US dollars).

Vittorio Colao, group CEO, commented: "This has been a year of strong execution for the group, returning to organic growth in both revenue and EBITDA for the first time since 2008. We achieved the first quarter of positive revenue growth in Europe since December 2010, while growth in AMAP accelerated with strong performance in South Africa, Turkey and Egypt."

Vodafone reported that its 4G networks now cover 87% of the population in its European markets, having invested 47 billion pounds over the past three years in capital equipment, spectrum and acquisitions. source: Vodafone statement

T-Mobile USA Lifts Telekom Again

Deutsche Telekom reported a 4.8% year-on-year increase in revenue in organic terms for the first quarter to 17.6 billion euros. In Germany, revenues were down 2.5%, but sales climbed 10.9% in the US thanks to another sharp increase in customers. source: Deutsche Telekom presentation

Amazon Forecasts Another Strong Quarter

Amazon forecast a year-on-year increase of between 21% and 32% in net sales in the second quarter to between 28 billion and 30.5 billion US dollars. In the first quarter, net sales increased 28% to 29.1 billion dollars. Excluding the unfavourable impact of exchange rate movements, net sales increased 29% year-on-year, Amazon said.

Sales for Amazon Web Services rose 64% year-on-year to 2.6 billion dollars for the first quarter. But Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, talked up the sales of the company's own range of devices. “Amazon devices are the top selling products on Amazon, and customers purchased more than twice as many Fire tablets than first quarter last year,” he said. “Earlier this week, the $39 Fire TV Stick became the first product ever — from any manufacturer — to pass 100,000 customer reviews, including over 62,000 5 star reviews, also more than any other product ever sold on Amazon. Echo too is off to an incredible start, and we can’t yet manage to keep it in stock despite all efforts.” source: Amazon presentation