Vodafone suffers travel hit but gets boost from Africa

VODAFONE is still suffering from the collapse in foreign travel with lower fees earned from the stiff international roaming charges slapped on overseas visitors.

First-quarter roaming and visitor revenues were up 56% year-onyear, but remain half of prepandemic levels. The mobile phone giant nevertheless unveiled a 3.3% jump in overall income today to €9.3 billion as it benefited from strong sales at African arm M Pesa.

The money transfer and phone payments business is now the continent’s largest fintech platform and became a lifeline through the pandemic, allowing people without bank accounts to transfer cash for payment of bills and salaries.

CEO Nick Read said: “In Europe the operating and retail environment has still not returned to normal.”

Shares in the telecoms operator shot up 4.4% to 121.02p, their biggest jump in five months, on the back of today’s better-thanexpected results.

Read added: “The number of transactions on M Pesa in the quarter was 4.5 billion, with a total transaction value of €63 billion. This is a huge platform that is really in the early stages of scaling.”