Vodafone (VOD) Stock on 3 December 2025: Near 52‑Week Highs, Dividend Hike and €500m Buyback Fuel Turnaround Hopes

London – 3 December 2025 – Vodafone Group Public Limited Company is suddenly behaving like a classic “boring telco” that remembered it can move fast. The shares are near 52‑week highs, the dividend has just been raised for the first time in eight years, and a fresh €500m buyback is running in the background while management talks up multi‑year growth.

Here’s what’s happening with Vodafone stock today, what has changed in 2025, and how analysts and models now see the risk–reward.

Vodafone share price on 3 December 2025

Heading into Wednesday’s session (3 December 2025):

U.S. ADRs (NASDAQ: VOD)
- Last close (2 December): $12.38, up about 2.1% on the day.
- Day range: roughly $12.32–$12.49.
- 52‑week range:$8.00–$12.72, so the stock is trading very close to its one‑year high.
- Market capitalisation: around $29–30bn (≈$30.3bn per StockInvest; ≈$30.1bn per Yahoo Finance). ^[1]
London listing (LSE: VOD)
- Price in London late morning on 3 December: 94.74p.
- 1‑year change: about +35%.
- 52‑week range:62.40p–96.34p, with the high set on 11 November 2025, the day of the half‑year results and dividend announcement. ^[2]

In other words, Vodafone stock has quietly staged a serious comeback in 2025: the London line has risen from the low‑60p area in April to mid‑90s now, while the ADR has rallied from around $8 to the low‑$12s. ^[3]

What changed in 2025: turnaround moves and a clearer story

Half‑year results: revenue momentum returns

On 11 November 2025 Vodafone reported H1 FY26 (half‑year to 30 September 2025) results and, crucially, raised its earnings outlook and the dividend. ^[4]

Key points from those results and the accompanying commentary:

Adjusted EBITDAaL (a cash‑flow‑style profit measure) rose 5.9% in the first half to €5.73bn. ^[5]
Germany, Vodafone’s largest market, returned to top‑line growth in the second quarter after a TV‑subscription regulatory change had dragged down revenue in 2024. ^[6]
Management now expects full‑year adjusted EBITDAaL to come in at the upper end of its previous €11.3–11.6bn range, and free cash flow at the high end of €2.4–2.6bn. ^[7]
CEO Margherita Della Valle highlighted “good strategic progress”, including further operational simplification and improving customer satisfaction in Germany and the UK. ^[8]

Vodafone’s own investor materials stress three themes: better customer metrics, a leaner and more focused footprint, and growth in digital and enterprise services—especially in business connectivity, cloud, and financial services, where B2B digital revenue is up over 26% in two years. ^[9]

Portfolio reshaping: Spain, Italy and the Three UK merger

Over the last couple of years Vodafone has been methodically hacking away at its sprawl:

Vodafone Spain and Vodafone Italy have been sold, exiting tough, low‑return markets and freeing up capital. ^[10]
In the UK, the merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK completed on 31 May 2025, creating a new operator, VodafoneThree, 51% owned by Vodafone and 49% by CK Hutchison. ^[11]

According to the merger announcement:

VodafoneThree plans to invest £11bn over ten years into what it wants to be one of Europe’s most advanced 5G networks.
Management expects £700m per year of cost and capex synergies by year five.
The deal is expected to be accretive to Vodafone’s adjusted free cash flow from FY29 onwards (once the heavy early‑stage investment is out of the way). ^[12]

Strategically, this completes what Della Valle calls the “reshaping of Vodafone in Europe”, leaving the group focused on markets where it has scale positions and, in theory, better economics. ^[13]

Space as the new tower: AST SpaceMobile partnership

On 7 November 2025, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile announced plans for a Europe‑led satellite constellation providing “satellite‑to‑smartphone” connectivity for commercial and government users. ^[14]

The operations centre for the constellation will be based in Germany.
The joint venture aims to support broadband, public safety, and disaster‑relief connectivity across Europe.
AST plans to deploy up to 60 satellites by 2026, competing with Starlink and other direct‑to‑cell offerings. ^[15]

This is still a longer‑dated option rather than a near‑term earnings driver, but it builds on Vodafone’s existing minority stake in AST SpaceMobile and slots into the group’s narrative of being not just “a mobile carrier” but a connectivity platform across terrestrial and space‑based networks.

Income story: dividend and buybacks back in focus

First dividend increase in eight years

The emotional headline for many long‑suffering Vodafone shareholders is simple: the dividend is finally growing again.

On 11 November, Vodafone said it would increase its dividend by 2.5% for the year to March 2026 under a new “progressive” dividend policy. ^[16]

Concretely:

The FY26 interim dividend was set at 2.25 eurocents per ordinary share, with an ex‑dividend date of 20 November 2025 (21 November for ADRs) and payment date 5 February 2026. ^[17]
Vodafone’s new policy is to grow the dividend per share by roughly 2.5% a year, with the interim set at 50% of the previous year’s total. TS2 Tech+1

In London, the Financial Times currently shows an annualised dividend of about 4.03p, implying a forward yield around 4.3–4.5% at today’s 94–95p share price. ^[18]

On the ADR, different data providers peg the trailing and forward dividend yield around 4.1–4.2%, with a total yield (dividends plus buybacks) over 11% thanks to the repurchase programme. ^[19]

€500m buyback running into early 2026

Dividends aren’t the only way cash is going back to shareholders.

Vodafone launched a €500m share buyback programme on 11 November 2025, scheduled to run through early February 2026. TS2 Tech+1

The London Stock Exchange feed shows a drumbeat of “Transaction in Own Shares” RNS notices through late November and early December, reflecting daily on‑market repurchases. ^[20]
TS2’s analysis notes that this buyback sits on top of earlier capital‑return moves and is intended to support a “progressive dividend plus buyback” total‑yield story. TS2 Tech

Given Vodafone’s enormous share count (around 23.8bn shares outstanding), a €500m tranche won’t transform the share structure overnight. But when combined with a c.4% cash yield, it pushes Vodafone firmly into high‑yield, capital‑return stock territory rather than a pure growth story. ^[21]

Fundamentals and valuation: cheap, expensive, or just… telco?

Vodafone is not suddenly a mint‑condition growth company. The financials remain mixed.

Revenue, earnings and leverage

Recent data for the 2025 financial year (FY25) and trailing twelve months show: ^[22]

Revenue: roughly €37–38bn.
Net income (TTM): around –€4.2bn, still loss‑making on an IFRS basis, in part due to restructuring charges and write‑downs.
Total debt: a little over €53bn.

Different data providers disagree on the precise P/E ratio, reflecting the impact of one‑offs:

Some services (e.g. ChartMill, Morningstar) show a normalized P/E around 11–12x and Price/Sales around 0.7x, which is in line with or slightly cheaper than many European telecom peers. ^[23]
Others that use strict trailing earnings point to a negative P/E (around –6x) because the statutory bottom line is still in the red. ^[24]

So the story is:

Operational metrics are improving, cash generation is solid enough to fund a growing dividend and buybacks, but Vodafone is still digesting a large transformation and carrying chunky debt.

How analysts and models see Vodafone stock now

Human analysts: cautious to negative overall

Recent traditional analyst and broker commentary remains surprisingly chilly, despite the share price rally.

A 2 December 2025 MarketBeat digest on Vodafone notes that: ^[25]

Arrowstreet Capital increased its stake by about 22.9% in Q2, to 27.7m ADRs (≈1.14% of the company), worth roughly $295m.
Yet the consensus rating tracked by MarketBeat is still “Strong Sell”, with only one Buy, three Hold and seven Sell recommendations.
Various brokers, including BNP Paribas Exane, UBS and Zacks, have published underperform or sell calls during 2025, highlighting structural competition, regulatory pressure and debt.

Nasdaq’s data show a 1‑year target price around $10.09 for the ADR—below the current $12.38 trading level, implying downside according to that particular composite model (though some of these inputs may pre‑date the November results and dividend hike). ^[26]

In the UK retail space, outlets like The Motley Fool UK have framed Vodafone as a “dirt‑cheap, high‑yield” share still weighed down by its debt pile and patchy growth record, with some writers leaning cautious despite the higher dividend and 2025 rally. ^[27]

Fair‑value tweaks: the narrative inches more positive

Even relatively sceptical platforms concede that things are moving in the right direction:

A Yahoo Finance analysis piece (blocked in full but visible in summary) noted that Vodafone’s fair value estimate ticked higher, with one model nudging its target from £0.89 to £0.90 per share after the November results, reflecting modest upgrades to growth and cash‑flow assumptions. ^[28]

London’s Investors Chronicle keeps Vodafone at a “Hold” rating as of 11 November, acknowledging the dividend increase and improving outlook but stopping short of a clear buy signal. ^[29]

Technical models: quietly bullish in the short term

Purely technical and AI‑driven services are more upbeat right now.

StockInvest.us, which focuses on price action and moving averages, currently classifies Vodafone’s ADR as a “Buy or Hold candidate”: ^[30]

Price: $12.38 at the 2 December close.
The stock sits in a “wide and weak rising trend”; their model expects about 5.6% upside over the next three months, with a 90% probability of trading between roughly $12.04 and $13.53 at the end of that period.
Short‑ and long‑term moving averages both generate buy signals, though there is a sell signal from MACD and from a recent pivot top, so they describe risk as medium.
They flag near‑term support around $12.24 and a suggested stop‑loss near $11.84 (about 4.4% below the last close).

For traders, this paints Vodafone as a moderately trending, medium‑risk stock with a slightly positive skew over the next few months—hardly a meme rocket, but also no longer dead money.

Key risks: India, regulation and debt still matter

The plot twist here is that even as the share price and cash returns improve, several big risk factors remain very much alive.

India: Vodafone Idea saga not over yet

Vodafone has largely de‑consolidated its Indian exposure by allowing its stake in Vodafone Idea to be diluted to around 16.1% after the Indian government converted spectrum dues into equity earlier in 2025. TS2 Tech+1

However:

India’s Supreme Court has allowed the government to reassess certain Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues up to FY17, opening the door to a more flexible settlement but also creating more moving parts. TS2 Tech
Reports in Indian telecom media discuss a potential relief package and bank funding that could stabilise Vodafone Idea, but the Department of Telecommunications is still pursuing substantial additional AGR charges, so the legal and regulatory cloud hasn’t fully lifted. TS2 Tech

For Vodafone Group, this means India has moved from front‑and‑centre balance‑sheet threat to annoying but still meaningful tail risk. A constructive outcome could de‑risk the story further; a messy resolution could still sting.

UK regulation and mass‑action lawsuits

Closer to home, Vodafone is one of several UK mobile operators facing a multi‑billion‑pound class action:

A London tribunal has allowed parts of a £3.2bn lawsuit alleging that Vodafone, BT/EE, O2 and Three overcharged customers who stayed on after their minimum contract expired, effectively charging a “loyalty penalty” on handsets that had already been paid off. ^[31]
Claims relating to periods before October 2015 were thrown out as too late, but post‑2015 claims can proceed to trial. ^[32]

Separately, the UK government has been pressing telecom bosses over mid‑contract price rises that exceed inflation, signalling a tougher stance on consumer protection in a sector already known for tight margins. ^[33]

While it’s impossible to put a precise number on the eventual cost today, the direction of travel is clear: regulatory and legal headwinds are not going away.

Debt and interest‑rate sensitivity

Finally, Vodafone still carries tens of billions of euros in net debt and faces:

Ongoing capex needs for 5G, fibre and now satellite projects.
Potentially higher long‑term financing costs if rates remain structurally above the ultra‑low levels of the 2010s. ^[34]

The group is addressing this via asset sales, joint ventures (like fibre deals in Spain) and disciplined capex guidance, but balance‑sheet repair is a process, not an event.

So what does Vodafone stock look like on 3 December 2025?

Putting it all together, Vodafone on 3 December 2025 looks like:

A high‑yield European telecom that has finally stopped shrinking and is showing modest revenue growth, especially in Germany, the UK and Africa. ^[35]
An operator that has simplified its footprint, completed a transformational UK merger, and is experimenting with satellite‑to‑phone connectivity and AI/cybersecurity‑driven enterprise services. ^[36]
A stock that has already rallied roughly a third over the last year, leaving it near 52‑week highs and, by some analysts’ models, a little ahead of conservative fair‑value estimates. ^[37]
A cash‑return story with a 4%+ dividend yield, a new progressive policy, and an active €500m buyback, giving a double‑digit “total yield” when you combine dividends and repurchases. ^[38]
A business still wrestling with legacy issues: legal actions, regulation, high leverage and residual India uncertainty. TS2 Tech+2Reuters+2

For income‑oriented investors, Vodafone now sits firmly in the camp of “yield with a turnaround attached”: you’re paid to wait, but you’re also exposed to execution risk on growth, cost cuts and portfolio clean‑up.

For short‑term traders, the technical picture is mildly positive—StockInvest’s model calls VOD a near‑term buy candidate with medium risk—but that view is mechanically tied to recent price momentum and can flip quickly if the stock breaks support levels. ^[39]