Vodafone eliminates 11,000 jobs, experiences significant cash flow decline

In order to streamline the telecoms group, Margherita Della Valle, the new CEO of Vodafone, announced that she would cut 11,000 jobs over the course of three years.

She deemed this necessary given that it anticipated a 1.5 billion euro decline in free cash flow this year.

After being given a permanent position last month, Della Valle stated, "Our performance has not been good enough."

She stated that growth, simplicity, and customers were her top priorities. She added that in order to regain its competitiveness, the company would streamline its operations and eliminate complexity.

The organization, which has about 100,000 employees, is making the largest job cuts in its history.

When compared to the 4.8 billion euros it reported for the year ended in March on Tuesday and the estimated 3.6 billion euros by analysts, Vodafone predicted that it would generate about 3.3 billion euros of cash in the fiscal year 2023–24.

It claimed that the performance of its biggest market, Germany, combined with rising energy prices caused a 1.3% decline in group core earnings to 14.7 billion euros for the year ended in March, falling short of its own forecast.

However, thanks to growth in Africa and higher handset sales, it was only able to eke out a 0.3% increase in revenue to 45.7 billion euros.

Recently, Vodafone has made job cuts in a number of its major markets. Earlier this year, it cut 1,000 jobs in Italy, and a media report claimed that it planned to cut 1,300 jobs in Germany.

Regarding the rumored merger of its British operations with Hutchison's Three UK, Vodafone stated that there could be no assurance that a deal would ultimately be reached. It made no further remarks about the discussions.