Vodafone plans £7bn upgrade to fight 'tough' trading conditions

Vodafone is to invest an extra £1bn to improve its mobile network as it points to tough trading conditions in the first half of the year.

The telecoms giant reported organic service revenue - a revenue measurement which strips out the impact of one-off costs such as handset sales - was down 4.9% in the second quarter due to weak sales in Europe. This compares to a 3.5% fall in Q1 and a 4.2% fall in Q4. The £7bn ‘Project Spring’ investment plan for the next two financial years is expected to boost profitability over the long term, but will result in a cash outflow in the 2015 financial year, the group said. In its half-year report, the telecoms giant revealed statutory pre-tax profits of £1.514bn for the six months ended...