By Adria Calatayud

Vodafone Group PLC said Tuesday that pretax profit for fiscal 2021 rose as lower costs offset a revenue decline and said it expects to drive returns in the medium term through efficiency and growth.

The U.K. telecommunications group made a pretax profit for the year to March 31 of 4.4 billion euros ($5.35 billion) compared with EUR795 million for fiscal 2020. The company swung to a net profit of EUR112 million from a net loss of EUR920 million a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization--the company's preferred metric, which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--for the year declined 1.2% to EUR14.39 billion.

Revenue for the year fell 2.6% to EUR43.81 billion.

Analysts expected Vodafone to report an adjusted Ebitda of EUR14.54 billion on revenue of EUR43.64 billion, according to a company-collated consensus based on estimates by 16 analysts.

Vodafone said it expects adjusted Ebitda to be between EUR15.0 billion and EUR15.4 billion this year, with adjusted free cash flow anticipated to be at least EUR5.2 billion.

The board maintained its full-year dividend at 9 European cents a share, flat on year.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2021 02:37 ET (06:37 GMT)

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