Vodafone’s European organic service revenue growth dropped again in the September quarter, to -1.3%, and we estimate that it continues to underperform its competitors’ growth by two percentage points, thus losing market share. Margins also fell, as the company’s cost reduction measures continue to fail to stop costs rising

Vodafone Europe’s service revenue growth dropped by two full percentage points in the quarter to June 2008; Spain plummeted from +5.1% to -2.5%, but the UK and Italy’s underlying growth also fell, with only Germany stable

Vodafone’s Q4 revenues were healthy if a little weak, with underlying growth slowing from 2.0% to 1.8%, but the improvement in Germany is very welcome

Vodafone UK has announced a tariff refresh that includes ‘free’ mobile browsing with all of its new contract plans

Yell announced this week that full year sales growth (to March 2008) in its UK operations would be 2%, sharply down from the previously forecast 3%, due to “toughening market conditions” since the start of 2008

Vodafone’s European performance was very solid, with underlying growth of 1.9%, up from 1.7% last quarter, with some very encouraging moderation to price cuts in Germany and elsewhere

Unity Media sold its 14.58% stake in German pay-TV operator Premiere to News Corporation at the start of 2008, prompting speculation of a full takeover by News Corporation later in the year

Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print

This report looks at the prospects for mobile operators. It focuses on the UK, and Vodafone in particular, because of the high quality of data available to analysts. We think the main conclusions apply widely across European operators.

It is well placed to weather any downturn, though its dependence on recruitment advertising continues to concern outside observers.