Vodafone Group plc (LON:VOD) beat first-quarter revenue expectations driven by Turkey, the Middle East and Asia, boosting its shares.
The stock rose 10.95p, or 4.9%, to 236.05p as the mobile phone group said first quarter group organic service revenue gained 2.2%.
That was better than the 1.9% expected by Deutsche Bank but still below the 2.5% growth achieved in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Vodafone said its European business remained stable despite the EU's move to cut roaming fees, with Germany up 1.6%, Spain rising 1.3% and Italy lifting 1.2% although the UK fell 3.2%.
But there was sustained growth in Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific (AMAP), with India gaining 6.4%, Vodacom up 4.4%, Turkey increasing 19.5% and Egypt advancing 9.4%.
Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett noted that the company still reported a 4.5% decline in overall revenue after including a foreign exchange hit.
Hyett said: "Eurozone recovery plays are few and far between in the UK market, and Vodafone is easily the largest and most liquid that we can identify.
"The yield of 5.1% means you are being paid to wait and see if Mario Draghi can turn the eurozone ship around.
"In the UK, Vodafone’s revenues are still suffering from a change in its billing system, which gave rise to a flood of customer complaints. Looking forward the company is running field trials of its Vodafone TV service, as it bids to join in the quad-play race of combining TV, broadband, fixed line and mobile telephone services all in one package, from one provider.
"Data growth has been very strong for Vodafone, but it’s hard to see that translating into extra revenues at the moment. The company’s challenge is to charge adequately for the increasing amount of data it is distributing."
Vodafone said 4G adoption was driving ongoing data growth, with 4G customers doubling to 52.5mln and data volumes up 63%.
Strong fixed-line momentum continued with 348,000 broadband net adds, up 32%, of which 217,000 were on-net. Enterprise business rose 2.6%.
Vodafone has already said it may move its headquarters out of the UK following the referendum vote because it only does about 11% of its business in Britain and needs to be in the EU.
It also said recently that it was switching to reporting its results in euros rather than sterling.
Chief executive Vittorio Colao said: "We continued to make good progress during the first quarter.
"In Europe, our growth remains stable despite regulatory pressure on roaming revenue, with good performance in Germany, Spain and Italy while we are focused on improving our performance in the UK.
"Our growth momentum in AMAP remains strong, with excellent performance in South Africa, Turkey and Egypt and ongoing recovery in India.
"Customers in multiple markets are attracted by our 'more-for-more' commercial offerings of larger data bundles and extra services, while we are seeing continued success with our fixed broadband and enterprise strategies."