Britain's Vodafone returns to quarterly sales growth

LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) - Britain's Vodafone posted a rise in its quarterly sales measurement for the first time in nearly three years on Tuesday, helped by improving trends in its key European markets and demand for 4G mobile services.

The world's second largest mobile operator said the rise in fourth-quarter organic service revenue of 0.1 percent, which followed 10 quarters of declines, meant that its overall earnings could also stabilise in 2016.

The group, which has been hit hard by the constraints on consumer spending in its big European markets and by regulator-imposed price cuts, forecast a range for 2015-16 core earnings of 11.5 billion pounds ($18.0 billion) to 12 billion pounds.

Compared to the 11.9 billion pounds it reported for the 2014-15 period on Tuesday, that could indicate a return to growth following seven straight years of earnings decline on an organic basis. ($1 = 0.6387 pounds) (Reporting by Kate Holton, Editing by Paul Sandle)