London: Vodafone Group Plc on Thursday said competitive pressures in India with free services offered by new entrant Reliance Jio and the impact of demonetisation on prepaid top-ups led to a nearly 2% drop in its service revenue from the country. “Our strong organic performance in South Africa and Turkey was partially offset by India, where the sector is affected by free services from the new entrant,” Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao said in a statement. As announced earlier this week, we have also entered discussions with the Aditya Birla Group about an all-share merger of Vodafone India and Idea,” he added. In Europe, service revenue growth continued, led by Italy, Germany and Spain,” he said. The group’s total revenue was €13.7 billion and group service revenue was €12.3 billion.

Source: Mint February 02, 2017 13:40 UTC