Vodafone reported a 4.8 per cent fall in service revenue, excluding currency swings and acquisitions, in its third quarter results but was optimistic that 4G and emerging markets will revive performance.

The company’s European operations reported a 9.6 per cent fall in service revenue with its largest market Germany suffering a 7.9 per cent decline.

Even worse was Italy where economic difficulties added to price competition with the result that revenue fell by 16.6 per cent.

Across the group service revenue in the three months to the end of December 2013 fell to £9.86 billion. Total revenue, expressed on a similar basis, dropped by 4.3 per cent to £10.98 billion.

However, brighter news came from Vodafone’s emerging markets where service revenue was on the rise in the third quarter. Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific reported an encouraging 5.5 per cent gain. India was a star (13.2 per cent gain) while Turkey had a strong supporting role (3.9 per cent).

The company is hoping such markets will counteract moribund European markets to put revenue back on track. Cost-cutting is also helping group performance.

And CEO Vittorio Colao (pictured) pointed to other factors: “In addition, the shift to 4G is gaining momentum and we have seen improving mobile customer net addition trends. We are therefore optimistic that our revenue performance will begin to improve as regulatory headwinds ease and customer appetite for video and content services increase.”

On the subject of 4G, Colao picked up on a positive performance in the UK where Vodafone now has over 370,000 users on 4G plans since its launch in August last year. Its strategy has been to showcase content – primarily music and sport – to woo customers.