Vodafone Group, the world's largest mobile phone group by revenue, beat third quarter forecasts for revenues and increased its guidance to reflect foreign exchange movements.
It also said it was making good progress with its cost savings programme.
The group posted an increase in revenues in the quarter ending December, of 14.3% to reach £10.47 billion sterling. Its mobile customer base rose by 9.5 million to stand at 289 million by the end of December.
Vodafone had cut its full-year revenue outlook in November when it reported its half-year results, but still managed to please investors when it said it would maintain profits and boost free cash flow by cutting £1 billion of costs.
Today it said it was increasing the guidance due to foreign exchange movements but confirmed the underlying ranges. For the year ending March 31, it now expects a revenue range of £40.6-41.5 billion, from a previous range of £38.8-39.7 billion.
Adjusted operating profit is now forecast to be between £11.5-12 billion, from the previous range of £11-11.5 billion.
Vodafone said that solid results in Germay and Italy and stablised UK figures offset continuing weakness in Spain.
It said that both Ireland and Portugal were hit by deteriorating market environments during the quarter. It added that the Irish performance was also affected by substantial price reductions in pre-paid tariffs.
The firm also said that it saw record customer growth in India with service revenue growth of 29.6% at constrant exchange rates.
In an update on the cost-savings programme, it said good progress had been made and cost savings of approximately £500m were expected to be generated by the end of the 2010 financial year.
Meanwhile, Vodafone Ireland said its average revenue per user fell by 7.5% in the third quarter to the end of December compared with a year earlier. ARPU fell from €43.90 to €40.60.
The company said that its total Irish customer base - including mobile, fixed line and DSL customers - stood at 2.31 million by the end of December.
It said its mobile broadband subscribers exceeded the 102,000 mark by the end of December.
The number of text messages exceeded the one billion figure for the first time to reach an all-time high of 1.06 billion, up 20.6% on the same time the previous year. Total voice minutes in the quarter grew by 6.9% to 1.65 billion.
Vodafone also announced today that Anne O'Leary had been appointed as Director of Business and Enterprise with responsibility for its business customers and business channels.
Shares in Vodafone closed up 7% at 137p in London.
