Vodafone Group Public Limited Company (LON: VOD, NASDAQ: VOD) is ending 2025 in a very different place than it started: leaner in Europe, more focused on Africa, paying a higher dividend for the first time in years, and trading close to its 52‑week highs.
As of 5 December 2025, the big question for investors is whether Vodafone’s recent rally and strategic reshaping still leave meaningful upside – or whether most of the good news is now priced in.
Vodafone share price today: near the top of the range
On 5 December 2025:
- London-listed shares (LON: VOD) are trading around 95.3 pence, with a 52‑week range of 62.4p–96.32p. [1]
- U.S. ADRs (NASDAQ: VOD) are at roughly $12.6, with a 52‑week range of $8.00–$12.76 and a 1‑year gain of about 44%. [2]
That puts Vodafone within a rounding error of its recent highs on both sides of the Atlantic.
On fundamentals, Vodafone remains a classic “value telecom”:
- Price / Book: about 0.5x, implying the market still values the equity at roughly half of stated book value. [3]
- EV / EBITDA: around 7x, which is in line with or slightly below many European incumbents. [4]
- GAAP earnings are still negative, with a trailing P/E around ‑6, reflecting write‑downs and restructuring. [5]
- Beta ~0.26, so the stock has behaved more like a defensive income play than a high‑beta tech name. [6]
In other words: the share price has recovered sharply, but the market still treats Vodafone as a turnaround/dividend story rather than a growth stock.
Strategic reset: slimming Europe, doubling down on Africa
Under CEO Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone has spent the last two years simplifying a messy footprint:
- Spain: Vodafone completed the sale of Vodafone Spain to Zegona in 2024 for about €5 billion of enterprise value, exiting a structurally tough market while keeping a presence via an innovation hub and services agreements. [7]
- Italy: The group has also divested its Italian operations, continuing the pivot away from sub‑scale, low‑return European markets. [8]
- UK: Vodafone closed its transformational merger with Three UK, creating the country’s largest mobile operator and committing to invest roughly £11 billion into network upgrades and eliminating coverage “not‑spots.” [9]
At the same time, the company has leaned harder into Africa and fintech, where growth rates and margins are structurally higher than in mature European mobile.
Two fresh developments in early December 2025 reinforce that shift: the Safaricom deal and the PremiumFiber joint venture in Spain.
Catalyst #1 – Safaricom: Vodafone moves to control a high‑growth African fintech giant
On 4 December 2025, Vodafone announced that its African subsidiary Vodacom will acquire an additional 20% effective stake in Safaricom Plc, Kenya’s dominant telecom and mobile money operator. [10]
Key details:
- Vodacom will buy:
- 15% of Safaricom from the Government of Kenya for about €1.36 billion, and
- 5% from Vodafone’s own holding company for roughly €0.45 billion. [11]
- After completion, Vodacom will own 55% of Safaricom, with the Kenyan government at 20% and public investors at 25%. Safaricom will then be fully consolidated by both Vodacom and Vodafone. [12]
- The deal is expected to close in Q1 2026, subject to regulatory approvals in Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia. [13]
Why investors care:
- Safaricom is one of Africa’s crown‑jewel telecoms and fintech assets, with:
- A market capitalisation around €7.7 billion.
- Service revenue in Kenya up 9.3% year‑on‑year in the six months to 30 September 2025.
- M‑Pesa revenue up 14% in the same period.
- Around 38 million M‑Pesa users in Kenya and roughly 100 million daily transactions. [14]
- By moving from a minority to controlling stake, Vodafone and Vodacom gain:
- More direct control over strategy and capital allocation.
- The ability to fully consolidate Safaricom’s growing earnings, improving Vodafone’s growth profile and mix towards higher‑margin fintech. [15]
On 5 December, several African and telecom outlets framed this as a “transformative shift” in regional telecom ownership, noting that Vodacom becomes the dominant shareholder in a company that is central to mobile connectivity and financial inclusion in East Africa. [16]
From a stock‑market perspective, the Safaricom move supports the emerging narrative that Vodafone is no longer just a low‑growth European telco, but a hybrid of European infrastructure and African digital financial services.
Catalyst #2 – PremiumFiber and the final clean‑up of Vodafone Spain
Although Vodafone has sold Vodafone Spain to Zegona, the Spanish business is still relevant to the group’s balance sheet and reputation for capital discipline.
On 4 December 2025, Zegona confirmed the completion of PremiumFiber, a fibre‑to‑the‑home joint venture combining Vodafone Spain’s and MásOrange’s fixed networks, with Singapore’s GIC taking a 25% stake. [17]
Highlights:
- PremiumFiber brings together network assets covering over 12 million premises and nearly 5 million customers, forming one of the most advanced FTTH platforms in Europe. [18]
- Completion generated €1.4 billion in cash proceeds for Vodafone Spain. Those proceeds are earmarked to:
- Fund a special dividend to Zegona shareholders equivalent to around £1.62 per share.
- Repay the vendor financing owed to Vodafone (roughly €900m plus accrued dividends and costs), which should effectively clean up Vodafone’s financing exposure to the Spanish disposal. [19]
For Vodafone shareholders, this is less about new growth and more about de‑risking:
- It accelerates the unwinding of transitional financing linked to the Spain sale.
- It reinforces the message that Vodafone is prepared to rationalise capital‑intensive fibre assets while still ensuring Spanish customers enjoy full FTTH coverage via partnerships. [20]
Taken together with the Italy exit and UK consolidation, the Spanish developments help close a chapter of fragmented, low‑return exposure in southern Europe.
H1 FY26 results: revenue growth, dividend increase and a €500m buyback
The backdrop to all of this is a much stronger set of interim results.
In its H1 FY26 update on 11 November 2025, Vodafone reported: [21]
- Total revenue up 7.3% to €19.6 billion (from €18.3 billion a year earlier), driven by service revenue growth and the consolidation of the Three UK business.
- Service revenue up roughly 8% to €16.3 billion, with Europe returning to modest growth after years of stagnation. [22]
- Organic adjusted EBITDAaL growth around 6–7%, according to the company and earnings call commentary. [23]
Crucially, management tightened its FY26 guidance to the upper end of prior ranges:
- Adjusted EBITDAaL: €11.3–€11.6 billion.
- Adjusted free cash flow: €2.4–€2.6 billion. [24]
Two shareholder‑friendly decisions caught the market’s eye:
- First dividend increase in ~7–8 years
- Vodafone announced a “progressive dividend policy”, targeting a 2.5% increase in the FY26 dividend compared with the prior year. [25]
- Financial press noted this is the first upward move in the dividend since Vodafone’s cuts in the late 2010s, and framed it as a vote of confidence in the transformation under Della Valle. [26]
- New €500 million share buyback programme
- Alongside the results, Vodafone launched a €500m buyback of its ordinary shares, adding to more than €3 billion already returned through buybacks in recent periods. [27]
Dividend and buyback data for the ADRs line up with this narrative: VOD’s most recent declared dividend is about $0.257 per ADR, payable in early February 2026, following a $0.24 payment in August 2025. [28]
This combination of re‑accelerating revenue, higher shareholder payouts and clear guidance is a major reason Vodafone shares have rallied roughly 40–45% over the past year. [29]
Analyst views as of 5 December 2025: cautiously balanced
London‑listed shares (GBX)
Different data providers paint a broadly similar picture on LON:VOD:
- Investing.com consensus (16 analysts)
- Average 12‑month target: about 91p.
- Range: roughly 65p–141p.
- Consensus rating:“Neutral”, with 3 Buy, 8 Hold, 6 Sell recommendations.
- Implied downside vs the current 95.3p price: about 4–5%. [30]
- MarketBeat (5 analysts)
- Consensus rating: “Hold”.
- Rating split: 1 Sell, 3 Hold, 1 Buy.
- Average price target: 90p, implying around ‑5.6% expected downside from 95.3p. [31]
Recent single‑broker moves include:
- BofA Securities lifting its target from 92p to 98p, while keeping a Neutral stance. The bank cited:
- “Cleaner operations” after exiting Italy and Spain.
- Added scale in the UK after the Three merger.
- Scope to extend buybacks and grow the dividend.
But it also warned about intensifying fixed‑line competition in Germany, price pressure in the UK and the risk that Vodafone is being too generous with cash while parts of its network remain heavily legacy. [32]
- JPMorgan recently raised its UK target from 62p to 71p but still rates the stock “underweight”, even after VOD hit a fresh 52‑week high above 100p intraday before easing back. [33]
- Deutsche Bank has taken the more bullish side, with a Buy rating and a target around 140p, implying material upside if the turnaround fully takes root. [34]
A Simply Wall St valuation piece on 5 December notes that after the strong 1‑year rebound, the analyst consensus target (around £0.858) is now slightly below the current share price, suggesting limited upside on a discounted‑cash‑flow basis unless earnings surprises continue. [35]
U.S. ADRs (NASDAQ: VOD)
For the ADRs, the tone is somewhat more negative:
- StockAnalysis aggregates the average analyst stance as “Strong Sell”, driven by recent downgrades:
- UBS cutting its rating from Hold to Strong Sell.
- JPMorgan moving from Hold to Sell on the U.S. line. [36]
- MarketBeat’s U.S. coverage shows a skew toward Sell ratings as well, with only one Buy versus multiple Holds and Sells, though some of the numerical target data in that summary appear inconsistent with current prices and may be using legacy or foreign‑line references. [37]
Overall, the picture is mixed but not euphoric: the rally has pulled VOD closer to what many analysts see as fair value, and the consensus for the London share points to low‑single‑digit downside over the next 12 months, even as a minority of brokers argue for a much higher valuation if the transformation sticks.
Technical picture and short‑term trading signals
Short‑term traders are looking at a rather different set of indicators.
According to technical analysis platform StockInvest.us, as of the close on 4 December: [38]
- VOD’s ADR closed at $12.64, marking a third consecutive up‑day and a 5.25% gain over the last two weeks.
- The stock sits in the upper part of a “wide and weak rising trend”, which their models say often offers a good sell zone for very short‑term traders, but still supports higher prices in the medium term.
- Their AI‑driven model expects the stock to rise about 7% over the next three months, with a 90% probability of ending that period between roughly $12.27 and $13.77.
- They classify VOD as a “Buy candidate” based on the combination of short‑ and long‑term moving averages, even though MACD is flashing a sell signal and falling volume on rising prices suggests possible near‑term consolidation.
In plainer English: the trend is up but extended, and the technical tools see modest additional upside with medium risk, rather than a screaming breakout or obvious collapse.
Key risks investors are watching
Despite the improved tone, Vodafone is not a risk‑free income machine. Several issues matter for anyone looking at the stock on 5 December 2025.
1. Germany and UK competition
BofA’s latest note, as well as FT coverage of the H1 numbers, emphasise that Vodafone’s biggest market Germany has only just returned to growth, helped by wholesale revenue and the unwinding of prior regulatory hits, while still facing:
- Fierce fixed‑line competition from alternative fibre operators.
- Pressure on cable‑based infrastructure that requires continued capex. [39]
In the UK, the newly merged Vodafone–Three entity has scale but will be operating in a:
- Highly competitive market with aggressive discount players.
- Regulatory environment that will scrutinise pricing and network commitments, especially as Vodafone has pledged more than £11 billion of investment over the next decade. [40]
If Vodafone stumbles on execution here, both the earnings trajectory and the political optics around the merger could deteriorate quickly.
2. Class‑action “loyalty penalty” lawsuit in the UK
In mid‑November, a London tribunal allowed large parts of a £3.2 billion collective lawsuit against Britain’s major mobile networks – including Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three – to proceed to trial.
The claim alleges that operators overcharged long‑standing customers by continuing to bill for handsets that had already been paid off once minimum contract terms ended. Claims before October 2015 were rejected as too old, but later claims will be heard. All the companies strongly deny wrongdoing. [41]
While such cases usually take years to resolve and outcomes range from full defence victories to negotiated settlements, the lawsuit adds a layer of legal and reputational risk just as Vodafone is trying to rebrand itself as a more customer‑centric operator.
3. Vodafone Idea and emerging market exposure
Vodafone still owns a minority stake (about 16%) in Vodafone Idea Ltd in India, following the Indian government’s decision earlier this year to convert a large chunk of unpaid spectrum dues into equity. [42]
Vodafone Idea’s shares have rallied into early December on hopes of further regulatory relief and 5G rollout momentum, but the company remains:
- Highly leveraged.
- Dependent on tariff increases and government support to stabilise its balance sheet. TS2 Tech+1
Vodafone has already written down much of its exposure, but renewed capital needs in India could still pose a dilemma in the future.
Elsewhere, Vodafone’s footprint in Turkey and other inflation‑prone markets exposes it to FX volatility and complex accounting for hyperinflation, as detailed in the H1 FY26 report. [43]
4. Still‑negative bottom‑line metrics
Despite better cash flow, Vodafone’s consolidated financials still show:
- Negative net income on a trailing basis.
- Negative return on equity (around ‑8%) and negative return on assets, according to recent data. [44]
Those figures reflect heavy depreciation, write‑downs, and restructuring charges, but they also explain why a portion of the analyst community still sees the stock as an “avoid” or “strong sell” despite the higher dividend. [45]
Vodafone stock forecast for 2026: possible paths
No one can forecast Vodafone’s 2026 share price with certainty, but current guidance and analyst numbers allow some reasonable scenario‑building.
Base case – “High‑yield plodder”
This roughly matches sell‑side consensus:
- Vodafone delivers toward the top of its FY26 EBITDA and cash‑flow guidance, with Germany staying slightly positive, the UK integration proceeding roughly as planned, and Africa growing solidly. [46]
- Safaricom consolidation adds some growth, but is partly offset by ongoing price pressure in Europe. [47]
- The dividend grows modestly from the new base, and buybacks continue, but not at a rate that dramatically shrinks the share count. [48]
In this scenario, the share price tends to hover around today’s levels, consistent with average London‑line targets around 90–91p. Total return would be driven mainly by the 3–4% cash yield plus perhaps low‑single‑digit capital appreciation if multiples expand slightly. [49]
Bull case – “Africa and Three UK unlock a rerating”
This is closer to the Deutsche Bank‑style upside view:
- Safaricom’s growth in Kenya and Ethiopia continues at high single‑ or double‑digit rates, and M‑Pesa’s profitability becomes more visible in Vodafone’s consolidated numbers. [50]
- The Three UK merger delivers stronger‑than‑expected synergies and network quality improvements, allowing Vodafone to stabilise or gently lift ARPU without losing share. [51]
- Germany remains in growth rather than slipping back into decline, easing fears of another major reset. [52]
Under these conditions, market sentiment could shift from “value trap” to “re‑rated income grower,” with the share price gravitating toward the upper end of current target ranges (e.g. 120–140p) over time, echoing the most optimistic broker models. [53]
Bear case – “Crowded markets, legal drag”
The bear camp, reflected in some Strong Sell ratings on the ADRs, worries about: [54]
- Renewed revenue pressure in Germany and the UK as discount rivals and regulators clamp down on pricing.
- Higher‑than‑expected capex to meet 5G and fibre commitments, compressing free cash flow.
- Adverse outcomes or settlements in UK consumer litigation.
- Potential surprises from Vodafone Idea or other emerging‑market exposures.
If that combination materialised, the multiple could contract again and the stock might drift back toward the lower part of its 52‑week range (60–70p in London, single‑digits in the U.S.) over time, even if the dividend continues to be paid. [55]
Bottom line: what 5 December 2025 tells you about Vodafone stock
On 5 December 2025, Vodafone sits at an interesting crossroads:
- Price and sentiment have healed dramatically from early‑2025 lows, with the stock now trading just below its 52‑week highs and up more than 40% over 12 months. [56]
- The business is simpler and more focused, with Spain and Italy gone, a controlling stake in Safaricom on the way, and a dominant UK mobile position after the Three merger. [57]
- Cash returns are rising, via the first dividend increase in years plus an active buyback. [58]
- Yet analyst targets cluster slightly below today’s price, and a significant minority of brokers – particularly on the U.S. ADR – still see the stock as a sell, citing negative bottom‑line metrics and competitive risk. [59]
For income‑oriented investors comfortable with European regulatory noise and emerging‑market exposure, Vodafone now looks like a high‑yield, low‑beta telecom with an improving story but limited consensus upside from here.
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