VOD Vodafone Group PLC

By Stu Woo

LONDON--Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) said Thursday third-quarter revenue dropped 3.9% to 13.7 billion euros ($14.78 billion) from the same period a year earlier, but that its organic revenue, which excludes the effects of foreign exchange, from selling telecommunications services grew 1.7%.

The British telecommunications giant said that organic revenue growth in India dropped 1.9% because of competition from new mobile operator Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which has been offering free data services as a promotion. Vodafone said Monday it was in discussions to merge its Indian unit, which is the country's second-biggest mobile operator by subscribers, with No. 3 player Idea Cellular Ltd.

Should the proposed merger go through, the new Vodafone-Idea company would become India's biggest and the world's second-biggest mobile carrier by subscribers. Vodafone itself currently holds that global No. 2 spot and would fall to No. 6 should the India combination go through.

"This is not retrenching," Vodafone Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said Thursday. "This is about creating the leader in the (telecommunications) sector in India, a little short of 400 million customers." Eschewing global expansion, Mr. Colao has focused on positioning Vodafone as the clear No. 1 or No. 2 player in each of its 26 countries.

Vodafone confirmed its outlook for the year, saying it expected to meet the lower end of its growth forecast for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 3% to 6%.

-Write to Stu Woo at stu.woo@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 02, 2017 03:34 ET (08:34 GMT)

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