Oil price slides as US and Iran pause fire; cancer treatments help AstraZeneca beat profit forecasts – business live

Elsewhere on the corporate front this morning, Vodafone has reported a 9.7% rise in revenue in its first quarter to €10.3bn. Service revenue rose 5% in the quarter ended in June, compared with investor expectations of a 4.6% gain. Management now expects that its adjusted earnings will reach somewhere between €13bn to €13.3bn for the full year ending in March. In recent years, Vodafone has restructured its business – including selling its Italian and Spanish operations and its 50% stake in its Dutch joint venture – as well as merging with Three to create the UK’s largest mobile operator. Earlier this month the French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel became Vodafone’s largest shareholder after buying a 16% stake for £4.4bn. The company has also been fighting allegations, first published in the Guardian, that it “unjustly enriched” itself at the expense of scores of vulnerable small business owners by slashing commissions to franchisees running the mobile phone group’s high street stores.