Vodafone’s Q2 KPIs highlighted stronger growth in revenues from non-messaging data services in almost all of its territories. These are revenues derived from the Live portal and usage of other advanced data offerings such as the Mobile Connect card. They provide a good indicator of consumer appetite for multimedia services which go beyond basic text messaging.

Germany was a particularly strong performer for Vodafone, where the British company now controls almost as many customers as local rival T-Mobile. Non-messaging data revenues were up 83 percent compared to the same period last year. Customers with access to the Live portal were up to 5.2m and 3G subscribers totalled more than 500,000. Overall data revenues, which are still heavily weighted towards messaging services, grew 11.7 percent.

Non-messaging data revenues were also up in Italy (by 50.7 percent), the UK (again by 50.7 percent) and Spain (by more than 100 percent). Across all of Vodafone’s worldwide operations, these revenues represented 4.8 percent of total turnover, with messaging accounting for a further 12.1 percent. This means nearly 17 pence in every pound spent with Vodafone is on data services.

It was a healthy quarter overall for the group, which managed to meet its performance targets despite the impact of regulatory price reductions in key markets like Germany and the UK. Vodafone KK in Japan remains a problem area, but there are signs that the company is finally stabilising ARPU and gaining some traction for the transition to 3G services.

Vodafone appears commited to reporting customer additions as a headline figure, in contrast to rivals such as T-Mobile which seem to be switching their focus to highlighting the quality of customer growth and increasing profitability through cutting back on handset subsidy expenses.