THREE strikes and you’re out, they say.

If Arun Sarin’s first strike was the debacle over Vodafone’s $40 billion (£23.3 billion) bid for AT&T Wireless early last year, his second was surely last week’s poorly handled interim-results announcement, which cut £10 billion — 11% — off the company’s market value in one day.

Vodafone’s chief executive is at risk of losing the confidence of shareholders, and he has to convince them he is still the right man for the job.

The term “global executive” doesn’t apply to many British businessmen. Lord Browne of BP and Sir John Bond of HSBC are two of them. Another is Sarin. Their world belongs to the big picture, but even this view can often be clouded by the irritating inconvenience of detail.

Last week Vodafone’s investors ran for cover after a warning of slowing growth, a £5 billion tax bill and heavier spending to turn round the company’s struggling Japanese arm.

None of this should have come as a suprise. Just walk up the high street and you will see everyone jawing on their mobile phones. In Britain and other parts of Europe there is now almost 100% mobile-market penetration. In short, the market is maturing and profit margins are falling. In response Vodafone is trimming costs.

Vodafone’s rivals Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom had already warned the market of troubles ahead and the fact they wanted to compete aggressively for market share.

Sarin is shocked. The super-smooth executive doesn’t like being ruffled by what he sees as investor over-reaction.

He knows there is a fix. He could sell Vodafone’s interests in Japan and America and retreat to its European heartland, but such a move would be badly timed with both divisions starting to come good. He could commit himself to a higher dividend in the place of share buybacks, which investors fear could be stopped. But why? He believes the promised dividend hikes and share buybacks are already generous — combined they will total £9 billion this year.

What Sarin is saying is stick with me. Buy into the 3G generation — where Vodafone already has 5m customers among its world total of 171m.

This, combined with tapping the growth opportunities in the Czech Republic, India, South Africa (which he will use as a launch pad into Africa), Poland and Turkey, will put the zip back into the stock.

Sarin doesn’t believe he is living on borrowed time. His concern is whether he has enough time to achieve these ambitious targets. When he goes to meet institutional investors, sometimes one firm will field 30 portfolio managers. Some of them want income, some want growth, some want buybacks. It’s a broad constituency, but the one thing they don’t want is shocks. Sarin cannot afford a third strike.

Bid winds blow

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