Vodafone Ghana posted strong service revenue growth of 27.1% to push the second-quarter revenue growth of the Vodafone Group up by 3.5 per cent to $18.8 billion.

This is contained in Vodafone’s interim results for the second-quarter of this year.

Vodafone acquired 70 per cent of ailing state-owned Ghana Telecom and rebranded to Vodafone Ghana in 2009 and promised to turn the fortunes of the company in two years.

The strong showing of service revenue growth this year seems to point to a fulfillment of that promise.

The Vodafone Group said it also saw a strong service revenue growth in India (16.8%), Turkey (32.1%) and Vodacom (7.8%), and resilient performance from Germany (0.2%) and UK (1.7%).

The report indicated that conditions in southern Europe remained challenging as Italy recorded a a 1.5% fall in revenue, and Spain recorded a whopping 9.9% deterioration due to price reductions.

“Net debt was reduced US$37.4 billion following receipt of US$11 billion from the sale of its 45% stake in France's SFR,” the report said.

It quoted Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao as saying "we have made a good start to the year, reporting robust results despite challenging macroeconomic conditions across southern European economies and the impact of cuts to mobile termination rates.”

The CEO said revenue from Vodafone’s key focus areas of data, enterprise and emerging markets continued to grow strongly, adding that with its broad geographical mix and improving market positions, Vodafone was well placed for the rest of the financial year.

It said Capital expenditure, which stood at US$1.945 billion, was US$324.2 million higher year on year due primarily to LTE investment in Germany and network enhancements in Vodacom.