Vodafone Ireland has reported a fall of 46,000 to 2.12 million in its mobile customer numbers for the three month period to the end of June.
It said service revenue in Ireland had declined due to a combination of recessionary and competitive factors, particularly enterprise segment.
Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone firm by revenues, reported group sales in line with market expectations for the quarter to end-June as strength in India and Africa compensated for weakness in Europe.
The group, the first of Europe's major telecoms carriers to report this quarter, reiterated its reduced full-year guidance on Friday for, at best, flat profits. It has not given precise guidance for full-year revenue.
Organic service revenue fell 2.1 per cent but reported group revenue rose 9.3 per cent to £10.7 billion, thanks to positive currency effects and a higher stake in South Africa's Vodacom.
Reuters consensus was for revenue of £10.834 billion.
“The service revenue trend in Europe was consistent with the previous quarter and we continued to see good growth in India and South Africa,” Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said.
Organic revenue fell in Spain and Britain, as expected, and also fell 4.8 per cent in Germany, driven by cuts in mobile termination charges, reduced roaming as tourists and business people cut down on travel and lower spend by prepay customers.
Vodafone added 8 million customers in the quarter, taking its proportionate customer base to 315 million. Verizon Wireless, its US joint venture with Verizon Communications, had 1.1 million net customer additions.
Vodafone's data revenue grew 19 per cent organically to £888 million. Free cashflow rose 21 per cent to £1.896 billion, while the company's net debt at June 30th stood at £31.2 billion.
Reuters