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Vodafone Group PLC on Tuesday raised its adjusted earnings guidance for fiscal 2020, benefiting from its acquisition of certain Liberty Global PLC assets in Europe and the sale of its New Zealand operations.
The British telecommunications company VOD, -0.68% VOD, -1.21% upgraded its earnings outlook as it said that lower cash flows from India and the New Zealand sale LBTYB, +2.25% will lead to slightly lower-than-previously-expected cash flow and posted a narrowed pretax loss for the first half.
Vodafone said it now expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization–the company’s preferred profit metric, which strips out exceptional and other one-off items–of between 14.8 billion and 15.0 billion euros ($16.32 billion and $16.54 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2020. The company had previously guided for adjusted Ebitda of between EUR13.8 billion and EUR14.2 billion.
This implies organic growth for the full year of between 2% and 3%, Vodafone said.
Pretax loss for the six months to Sept. 30 was EUR511 million compared with a loss of EUR2.89 billion for the year-earlier period, the British telecommunications group said. In the first half of fiscal 2019, Vodafone booked a large loss on the sale of Vodafone India.
Revenue for the first half was up 0.4% at EUR21.94 billion, the company said. Organic service revenue–a figure closely watched by analysts–was up 0.3% for the first half and up 0.7%for the second quarter.
Vodafone said adjusted Ebitda was EUR7.11 billion in the first half of fiscal 2020, up 1.4% on an organic basis benefiting from cost savings.
