London, May 13, 2026, 14:02 BST
Vodafone Group Public Limited Company clawed back some ground in London on Wednesday, ticking up roughly 1% to 113.15 pence by midday. This follows Tuesday’s 7.02% slump, with investors eyeing a firmer profit forecast but still unsettled by new customer losses in Germany.
This shift is significant. Chief Executive Margherita Della Valle has all but wrapped up the major overhaul: Vodafone is out of Spain and Italy, its Dutch joint-venture stake is being sold, and it now fully owns VodafoneThree in the UK. What’s left is a slimmer group. Not much space for alibis anymore—Germany, Britain, and Africa are now carrying heavier loads.
Vodafone posted an 8.0% jump in total revenue to 40.5 billion euros for the year ended March 31. Service revenue climbed even more, up 8.8% to 33.5 billion euros. Adjusted EBITDAaL, the company’s preferred profit metric — which strips out lease, currency, deal, and other effects for comparability — increased 4.5% organically.
Vodafone’s outlook for the new financial year puts adjusted EBITDAaL between 11.9 billion and 12.2 billion euros, with adjusted free cash flow pegged at 2.6 billion to 2.9 billion euros. According to Alliance News via AJ Bell, the company’s adjusted earnings landed at 11.35 billion euros—just under the company-compiled consensus of 11.48 billion euros. That shortfall fed into the sharp early move in the stock.
Germany weighed heavily. Vodafone shed 77,000 mobile contract customers and another 90,000 broadband users in the fourth quarter, according to Bloomberg, despite management’s insistence that the unit is starting to recover revenue. With Germany accounting for around 37% of group adjusted EBITDAaL, even minor setbacks in the market have investors’ attention.
German operations took a hit after new TV regulations scrapped the mass bundling of cable contracts for apartment buildings. With the law now in effect, Vodafone faces the slower task of renegotiating contracts individually. Price pressure in mobile hasn’t let up either.
The other major variable is Britain. Last week, Vodafone reached a deal to acquire CK Hutchison’s 49% holding in VodafoneThree for 4.3 billion pounds. That move hands Vodafone complete control over what it describes as the UK’s largest mobile network, as well as one of the fastest-growing broadband firms in the country.
With that move, VodafoneThree lands directly in competition with BT’s EE and Virgin Media O2 in the UK. Reuters says the merger should wrap up in the back half of 2026, pending a UK national security sign-off. The combined firm is looking to pour cash into its network and is eyeing annual cost cuts of 700 million pounds by 2030.
Vodafone’s presentation laid out the numbers: Africa posted a 12.9% jump in service revenue for FY26, giving that segment a much sleeker growth profile. Over in the UK, growth looked more subdued—service revenue ticked up just 0.3%, and adjusted EBITDAaL rose 4.5%, reflecting the impact from consolidating the Vodafone-Three merger through most of the year.
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said “the turnaround is starting to take shape,” though he also warned, “this turnaround is far from complete.” Germany, he wrote, remains “Vodafone’s toughest nut to crack,” with the company feeling the pinch on pricing and subscriber numbers. Hargreaves Lansdown
Still, the risks are clear. Net debt keeps climbing, and the VodafoneThree deal means a hefty new cash demand. Germany? That’s still a question mark — fourth-quarter revenue will have to hold up even as customer losses persist. “The corner is far from having been turned just yet,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, after the market’s response. Interactive Investor
Vodafone’s outlook is more straightforward these days: the story’s easier to follow, the roadmap cleaner. The question now—will Germany finally ease up on management bandwidth right when the UK integration starts swallowing capital?
