Vodafone Ireland has said its average monthly revenue per user fell by 8.7% to €38.80 in the three months from July to the end of September compared with a year earlier as it added 106,816 new customers in the three-month period.
Vodafone customers here increased their voice minutes by 1.2% to 257 per customer in the third quarter, while they also increased the number of texts they sent by 6.4% to 183 per customer.
Vodafone said its Irish customers' use of voice minutes and texts remained higher than the Vodafone Europe average of 150 voice minutes and 88 text messages per customer for the quarter.
The total number of texts in the three month period increased by 21.4% to 1.16 billion while total voice minutes fell by 1.8% to 1.59 billion compared to the same time last year.
Vodafone said it had 2.12 million mobile customers by the end of September with another 177,607 fixed line and DSL customers. This brings its total customer base to 2.29 million.
Parent group sees boosted cashflow
Meanwhile, the Vodafone Group, the world's largest mobile phone service operator by revenue, is to step up cost cutting after a successful start to a programme which boosted cashflow in the first half of the year.
Vodafone said today that its first-half revenue, earnings and adjusted operating profits which were all in line with forecasts and reaffirmed its profit guidance for the year.
But a combination of foreign currency benefits, reduced working capital and the cost cuts meant the group beat forecasts for free cash flow - a measure of profits - which was up 29.1%, and it said it now expects that to be at the upper end of its original target for the full year.
Vodafone launched a £1 billion sterling cost-cutting scheme a year ago and accelerated the rate in May after confronting saturated markets in Europe and a slowing rate of growth from increased competition in emerging markets.
The company said today that it would deliver that programme a year ahead of plan and would now extend this to a further £1 billion of cost savings by 2012.
'The group has performed in line with our expectations and we have made strong progress with our strategic priorities, in particular in mobile data and cash generation," CEO Vittorio Colao said.
'We have confirmed our guidance for the full year, despite the uncertainties of current economic trends,' he added.
The group said that in Europe, organic service revenue from the provision of ongoing services was down 4.5% due to the tough economy and increasing competition.
Organic service revenue declined in Africa and Central Europe by 3.2% with growth in the African Vodacom unit being offset by weakness in Turkey and Romania.
India, a key market for Vodafone which has been hit by a pricing war, had service revenue growth of 20.5% after adding an extra 14.1 million customers, slightly better than analysts had expected.
Vodafone, which has also been hampered by regulatory changes and lower consumer spending across its territories, reported first half earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation up 2.9% to £7.5 billion, in line with expectations.
It said its half-year revenues were up 9.3% to £21.8 billion, also in line with expectations. Revenues were down 3% on an organic basis.
The results follow similar statements by European rivals which have also cut costs heavily and Indian rivals who have been hit by an increasingly vicious price war.
European firms Deutsche Telekom, Telenor, KPN and TeliaSonera have all reported higher than expected earnings thanks to cost cutting measures, but Deutsche failed to provide an outlook for 2010 due to economic uncertainty.
The only major exception so far was France Telecom which just missed forecasts and warned of rising restructuring costs.
Shares in Vodafone closed down 1.5% at just under 136p in London.
