Vodafone shares shoot up as it cuts off TalkMobile

Vodafone is phasing out TalkMobile, its “low-end” brand acquired from Carphone Warehouse in 2011. That means towards 50,000 UK customers will be transferred onto Vodafone’s platform, without service interruption, the telecoms giant insists.

London Vodafone customers should get better coverage, it said, after a new network-share agreement with rival carriers was signed.

Its shares were the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard today after first-quarter results were well received.

They moved up 3.5p to 228.4p after a rise in service revenue of 2.2%. That was notably better than the market had been predicting. Vodafone shares hit a high of 440p in January 2014. Revenues in the UK fell, but at a slower rate than before. UK sales were down 2.7%. Vodafone is growing in all other European markets, especially in Turkey, where sales were up nearly 14%.

Chief executive Vittorio Colao was in an upbeat mood. “We have made a good start to the year in Europe, where our commercial momentum remains robust.”

India remains a harshly competitive market. “Although competition in India remains intense, service revenues stabilised compared with the prior quarter,” he added.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “A few years ago, India was seen as the engine of growth, while the European businesses struggled. Fast forward to the present day, and things look very different.”