Vodafone (LON:VOD) reported a good start to the year as the European market bounced back, but warned that competition was still strong.
The mobile phone operator said first quarter European service revenue continued to recover as prices stabilised and commercial performance improved.
Revenue still fell 1.5% to just shy of £6bn against the same quarter last year, or by 1.3% excluding mobile termination rate cuts, while total revenue fell 3.9%.
The UK did relatively well as service revenue rose 0.2% on the back of more people taking mobile consumer contracts.
In Italy, a decline in service revenue slowed to 2% from 4.1% in the fourth quarter of last year, reflecting a more stable pre-paid market and more fixed line business.
German service revenue including the impact of the Kabel Deutschland group (KDG) acquisition declined 1.2% against 3.5% in the last quarter excluding KDG.
Continued customer growth in Germany was more than offset by a decline in contract average revenue per user.
Other European markets boosted organic revenue by 0.6% to £1.1bn.
Vodafone said there was positive momentum in Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific, with South Africa back to growth, revenue in India up 6.9% against the same quarter last year, Vodacom up 4.5% and Turkey rising 15%.
Organic group revenue was up 3.3% to £10.1bn but down 0.9% on a reported basis. Vodafone now has 24.1 million 4G customers across 18 markets.
Chief executive Vittorio Colao said: "We have made a good start to the year. Our emerging markets have maintained their strong momentum and more of our European businesses are returning to growth, as customer demand for 4G and data takes off.
"However, our markets are, as always, highly competitive and we therefore have to remain very focused on efficiency, cost control, and excellent value and service to customers, while continuing to achieve a good return for shareholders."