LONDON, March 21, 2026, 17:15 GMT
Vodafone Group Plc shares were at 107.95 pence late on Friday, up 0.28%, after Berenberg lifted its target price and a company announcement showed the telecom group had bought back another 2 million shares. 1
The move was modest. Still, it came as investors weigh whether Chief Executive Margherita Della Valle’s reshaping of the group can turn a run of disposals and mergers into steadier cash generation before FY26 results on May 12. 2
Paul Sidney at Berenberg raised his target price to 123 pence from 119 pence while keeping a Buy recommendation, according to a March 20 broker summary. An MT Newswires item said the note leaned on Vodafone’s “strategic simplification” after the third-quarter update, leaving the new target roughly 14% above Friday’s share price. 3
A March 20 company announcement showed Vodafone bought back 2 million ordinary shares on March 19 at a volume-weighted average price of 107.79 pence. The shares will be held in treasury, meaning the company keeps them on its own books rather than leaving them in public hands. 4
The repurchase sits inside a 500 million euro tranche launched in February. Vodafone said then it had already completed 3.5 billion euros of buybacks since May 2024. 5
The operating backdrop is firmer, though not clean. Vodafone said in February that third-quarter service revenue rose 5.4% and adjusted EBITDAaL — operating profit after lease costs — increased 2.3%, while full-year guidance stayed at the upper end of its range. It still expects 11.3 billion to 11.6 billion euros of EBITDAaL and 2.4 billion to 2.6 billion euros of adjusted free cash flow, or cash left after operating and capital spending. 6
Della Valle told reporters in February she expected “good growth this year” in Britain as the Three integration moved ahead. Vodafone’s presentation said the UK integration and network investment plan were on track, with 700 million pounds of cost and capital-spending synergies targeted by FY30. 5
The simplification case kept moving last month. Vodafone agreed to sell its VodafoneZiggo stake to Liberty Global for 1 billion euros in cash while retaining a 10% interest in the enlarged Benelux company, and Della Valle said the deal brought “1 billion euros in cash to Vodafone” with scope for more value creation. 7
That followed the broader reset. In May, Della Valle said, “We are now operating in markets where we have strong positions,” after sales in Spain and Italy and the UK merger agreement. That broader reset is the backdrop to the latest broker note and the steady buyback activity. 2
But the hard part has not gone away. Germany accounted for 32% of group service revenue in the third quarter and management said competition was still weighing on mobile ARPU, or average revenue per user. In Britain, scale still matters in a market shaped by BT’s Openreach network and Virgin Media O2. 6
That leaves May 12 as the next clean checkpoint. Investors will be looking for the same three things now in focus: whether Germany can keep improving, whether buybacks keep reducing the public share count, and whether the portfolio reset is producing the cash growth management has been guiding to. 8
