British mobile phone giant Vodafone said it is taking a charge of £6.7 billion sterling to cover a fall in the value of assets snapped up during the telecoms boom.
Vodafone, which owns Eircell here, also announced pre-tax profits before exceptional items of £3 billion for the six months to September, an increase of 65 per cent from the same time last year.
However, asset write-downs and other exceptional costs dug deep into Vodafone's bottom line, leaving it with losses of £8.5 billion.
"These results show excellent financial performance with robust growth in EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation], operating profit and earnings per share, improved margins and strong cash flow generation," said chief executive Mr Christopher Gent.
"This growth in all respects is better than we expected following the realignments to our strategy announced earlier this year.
"Vodafone's enhanced global leadership position, excellent progress on new products and service initiatives, combined with our better operational performance, is delivering strong growth momentum which serves to highlight both the defensive as well as growth qualities of Vodafone," he said.
Revenues in the six months to the end of September climbed 33% to £13.49 billion, below analyst forecasts of between £14.18 billion and £14.58 billion. The interim dividend rose to 0.7224 pence per share.