• Group service revenue declined 4.2%*; Europe -7.9%*, AMAP 4.7%*

  • Evidence of commmercial improvement in Germany (-4.9%*), Italy (-16.1%*) and UK (-3.2%*); Spain (-15.3%*) weaker on renewed competition

  • India (10.3%*) and Turkey (3.7%*) continue to show strong momentum; Vodacom was flat* impacted by an MTR cut in South Africa

  • Strong progress on Project Spring: 4G footprint across European markets up to 52%; 6.7 million 4G customers; Group data traffic up 73% year-on-year

  • Unified communications strategy advanced further: KDG integration commenced; completion of Ono; fibre alliannces in Ireland and Portugal announced

  • Free cash outflow on a guidance basis of £0.6 billion reflecting Project Spring investment; net debt £14.1 billion (£11.0 billion including Verizon loan notes), before Ono consideration of £5.7 billion

Change
Quarter ended 30 June 2014 Reported Organic
£m % %
Group revenue
10,204 6.2 (4.4)
Group service revenue
9,446 6.4 (4.2)
Europe 6,450 17.2 (7.9)
Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific ('AMAP')
2,894 (11.3) 4.7
Capital expenditure
1,867 83.4
Free cash flow
(582) n/m

Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive, commented:

"The year has started in line with our expectations. Through our commercial actions and investment, our performance is beginning to stabilise quarter-on-quarter in several of our European markets, with customer appetite for 4G services clearly growing. We also see very strong growth in demand for data in India. In unified communications, we have made further good progress on our strategy, continuing to implement our plans in several markets, and our customer growth trends demonstrate the strength of our commercial execution."

"Our £19 billion Project Spring investment programmme has taken off quickly, with capex nearly doubling year-on-year, and our 4G coverage in Europe up 20 percentage points to 52% in the last nine months. We are increasingly well positioned to deliver high speed mobile and fixed data services to consumers annd businesses alike."

For further information:

Note:
* All amounts in this documment marked with an "*" represent organic growth which presents performance on a comparable basis including merger and acquisition activity and movements in foreign exchange rates.

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