Vodafone's Vantage Towers confirms guidance

Vantage Towers confirmed its targets and guidance as Vodafone's infrastructure business reported strong commercial momentum.

Vantage Towers said it added about 1,400 new tenancies in the nine months to the end of December including about 500 tenancies that were not committed before. The business gained about 450 new macro sites and said it was confident about hitting its target of 550 sites by the end of March.

Financial performance in the first nine months of the financial year were in line with expectations, Vantage Towers said. It generated €723m (£631m) of revenue and €291m of cash flow on a pro forma basis. Vantage Towers said it expected earnings of €520m-€530m for the full year.

Vivek Badrinath, Vantage Towers's chief executive, said: "The growth opportunity in Europe is considerable, as the roll out of 5G accelerates and mobile operators look to expand their networks to manage ever increasing data traffic.

"I am very pleased with the commercial momentum we are building at Vantage Towers. Customers are appreciating the high quality of our grid and their response to our focused commercial approach is encouraging. This underscores our confidence in our tenancy targets."

Vodafone transferred its 50% stake in Cornerstone, its UK towers joint venture with Telefonica to Vantage Towers in January. Cornerstone contributed an extra €39m of free cash flow for the first nine months of the year based on Vantage Towers' 50% stake.

Badrinath said: "Cornerstone is a great addition - it's a market leader, with broad and dense coverage, providing services to two market leaders who already have a network sharing agreement in place."