Highlights
On 20 March 2017 we announced an agreement to merge Vodafone India with Idea Cellular in India. As a result, Vodafone India is now excluded from Group figures, unless stated otherwise.
- Group total revenue down 4.4% to €47.6 billion; full year organic service revenue grew 1.9%
- Q4 organic service revenue grew 1.5%; Europe stable at 0.1% (1.4% excluding regulation), AMAP robust at 6.8%
- Organic adjusted EBITDA up 5.8% to €14.1 billion; H2 adjusted EBITDA up 6.3%
- Adjusted EBITDA including India on a guidance basis up 3.4% to €15.8 billion, within 3%-6% guidance range
- Free cash flow (‘FCF’) €4.1 billion as capital additions declined 27.3% to a more normalised level post Project Spring of €7.7 billion; FCF €4.3 billion on a guidance basis
- Loss for the financial year of €6.1 billion includes a net of tax impairment of India of €3.7 billion
- Final dividend per share of 10.03 eurocents, up 2.0%, giving total dividends per share of 14.77 eurocents
- 2018 financial guidance: organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 4%-8% (€14.0-€14.5 billion); FCF around €5 billion
| Growth | ||||
| 2017 €m | Restated 2016 €m | Reported % | Organic % | |
| Group revenue | 47,631 | 49,810 | (4.4) | |
| Operating profit | 3,725 | 1,320 | +182.2 | |
| Loss for the financial year | (6,079) | (5,122) | +18.7 | |
| Basic loss per share | (22.51c) | (20.25c) | +11.2 | |
| Total dividend per share | 14.77c | 14.48c | +2.0 | |
| Net debt | (31,169) | (28,801) | +8.2 | |
| Alternative performance measures | ||||
| Group service revenue | 42,987 | 44,618 | (3.7) | +1.9 |
| Adjusted EBITDA | 14,149 | 14,155 | 0.0 | +5.8 |
| Adjusted EBIT | 3,970 | 3,769 | +5.3 | +7.0 |
| Adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations | 8.04c | 6.87c | +17.0 | |
| Free cash flow | 4,056 | 1,271 | +219.1 | |
Vittorio Colao, Group Chief Executive, commented:
‘Our focus on excellence in customer experience has enabled further improvements in our overall commercial and financial performance during the year. Sustained investment in network quality has provided the platform to offer more generous plans to our mobile customers in Europe, stabilising contract ARPU, and has allowed us to capture strong data growth in our emerging markets operations. We continue to be Europe’s fastest growing broadband provider, seizing the opportunities created by convergence and winning revenue market share, supported also by our Enterprise business which continues to outperform its peers.
This translates into organic revenue growth, which combined with a reduction in our cost base has expanded our adjusted EBITDA margin, accelerated our adjusted EBITDA growth to 6% and improved our cash generation. Additionally, the proposed merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular will create a new champion for Digital India, while capturing synergies with an estimated net present value of US$10 billion.
We expect to sustain our momentum in the coming financial year, generating free cash flow of around €5.0 billion. Our confidence in the outlook is demonstrated by another 2% increase in our dividend.’
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