2 billion pounds after depreciation of 1

For his first performance in the financial community, yesterday, Vittorio Colao has quickly fallen jacket: for more than two hours, the new Executive Director of Vodafone is enabled at the tribune, reviewing, here, the prospects for the European leader in mobile telephony, promising, then more discipline on the capital. The London Stock Exchange welcomed the decisions the crisis, the action Vodafone 6.19, climbing to 115 pounds. "The good news is that he was not warning about results contrary to what the market feared," said Amanda Purton, analyst at Barclays.

In the first half, the British group net income however fell by 35 to 2.2 billion pounds, after depreciation of 1.7 billion pounds of the Turkish subsidiary. If the appreciation of the euro against the pound doped sales, 19.9 billion, organic turnover growth is limited to 0.9. In these times of strain on liquidity, Vodafone leaders wanted to focus on the growth of 16 of the excess cash flow: this synonym indicator of dividends to the shareholder is a new priority of the Group and will in future be reflected in the remuneration of the management.

"Essential services".

"Even if the trend of income has been weaker than expected in Europe, we succeeded in generating a strong cash flow," insists Vittorio Colao, and then for"essential services", which people can no longer happen once they have tasted it, according to him. A judgment that analysts in the room, riveted to their BlackBerry, have not contradicted... In full global slowdown, one of the safest methods to improve the cash flow is to cut costs. Vittorio Colao unveiled yesterday, a program of reducing the burdens to translate by 1 billion pounds of annual savings, here in the fiscal year 2010-2011.

At the same time, the prospects in terms of turnover were revised down for the current year, for the second time in four months: the Group table now on income between 38.8 and 39.7 billion pounds against 39.8 billion previously.

Tariff war

In the first half, the disappointment came from the United Kingdom, where sales declined from July to September, and Spain, which experienced two quarters of decline in turnover. "We have remained fairly quickly, Vodafone should be commercially more agile and more lean cost", summarizes Vittorio Colao. According to him, Vodafone well intends to participate in the tariff war, that new "packages" allow him to increase its products to an existing client or expand its penetration within a family, for example.

Another strong message launched yesterday: if he did not exclude formally future acquisitions, Vittorio Colao has assured that the international system of the Group seemed optimal: "Concerning the emerging countries, we are in good places." "Emphasis will skip expansion execution", he assured, promising and a stop in the aggressive policy of external growth of its predecessor, the Romania to the India.

In the end, one who succeeded Arun Sarin on July 29 already printed his mark on European giant's mobile strategy. The French Michel Combes, just replace the Italian at the head of Europe, has before him a vast construction site. Especially if he wants to prove that it is not only a "cost-killer".