The England based, world’s largest mobile-phone company, Vodafone Group Plc disappointed its investors by claiming that its annual profit dropped by 7.8% on Tuesday. Moreover, the report revealed that Earnings after tax dropped to £7.97 billion in the 12 months to the end of March in comparison to 8.65 billion in 2009/2010.

Deciphering the loss, the company is of the view that the weak economic condition in Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal lead to debacle. Moreover, the impairment losses are reported to have reached to £6.15 billion in comparison to that of £2.1 billion last time around.

Responding to the performance, Chief Executive, Vittorio Colao, claimed, “The past year has seen further strong performances in our key revenue growth areas of data, emerging markets and enterprise, and we have gained or held market share in most of our key markets”.

Apparently, the company is pondering to pull in almost £14.2 billion through the sale of its stake in China Mobile, SoftBank and SFR. Further, the company has predicted that its adjusted annual operating profits would increase to £11.0-11.8 billion in the current 2011/2012 financial year.

Following this news, Vodafone shares notched up by 2.4 % to 172.2 pence in London trading today and further, rose by 1.9% as of 10:07 a. m.