Wednesday, 31 May 2006

Vodafone Posts 21.92 Bln Pounds Loss in 2005/06

Vodafone has posted an annual net loss of 21.92 billion pounds (31.98 billion euros, 41.11 billion dollars) in the year ending March 31, compared with a net gain of 6.41 billion pounds during 2004-05.

The loss was mainly a result of the write-down of assets bought at the height of the telecoms bubble.

Pre-tax losses were 14.853 billion pounds, compared with a profit of 7.285 billion pounds the previous financial year. Excluding one-off charges, net profit rose as the group added 21.5 million customers during 2005-06.

Excluding the charges, the group raised net profit by 6.8 percent to 6.33 billion pounds. Group revenue jumped 10 percent to 29.35 billion pounds, while underlying pre-tax profits advanced 12.3 percent to 8.793 billion pounds.

The group has sold Japanese unit Vodafone K.K. to Japanese Internet group Softbank Corp. for about 8.9 billion pounds.