Vodafone Share Price Return Hits 49% in a Year as Niel Stake Reshapes the Register

The Vodafone share price return over the past twelve months has reached 49% on a total-return basis, with £1,000 invested a year ago now worth roughly £1,490 including dividends, as a blockbuster stake acquisition by French billionaire Xavier Niel catapulted VOD to the top of the FTSE 100’s recent performers.

The Niel deal and what it means for Vodafone’s shareholder base

Niel’s investment vehicle, Vega, which is indirectly wholly-owned by the Niel family group and described as the leading private investor in European telecoms, agreed to pay £4.4bn for a 16.2% stake in Vodafone. The transaction will be fully financed by Xavier Niel and participating financial institutions, with physical settlement of the shares conditional on regulatory approvals and targeted for completion by year-end.

The announcement carried a secondary consequence for Vodafone’s governance. Vodafone confirmed the same day that its relationship agreement with Emirates Telecommunications Group (e&) has been terminated and that Hatem Dowidar has resigned from Vodafone’s board. The e& relationship agreement, signed in May 2023, is brought to an end by the Vega transaction. Niel now stands as Vodafone’s largest shareholder by a considerable margin.

The share price at the time of writing stands at 117.8p, valuing Vodafone at £27.1bn and ranking it 29th by market capitalisation in the FTSE 100. The stock leapt 20.1% in the five trading days following the Niel disclosure, after gaining 18% over the prior six months. Over five years, the shares are up just 1%, which frames how much of the recovery is concentrated in the recent period.

Underlying financials: revenue up, operating profit under pressure

The one-year Vodafone share price return sits against a mixed operational backdrop. For the first half of FY26, Vodafone’s SEC Form 6-K filing shows total revenue rose 7.3% to €19.6bn (H1 FY25: €18.3bn), with service revenue on a reported basis up 8.1% to €16.3bn and organic service revenue growth of 5.7%. The consolidation of Three UK following the merger completed on 31 May 2025 was a material contributor, as confirmed in the FY26 preliminary results on the London Stock Exchange.

Operating profit, however, fell 9.2% on a reported basis to €2.2bn (H1 FY25: €2.4bn). Higher depreciation and amortisation following the Three UK consolidation, together with lower other income, more than offset the gross profit improvement. Basic earnings per share from continuing operations dipped to 3.38 eurocents from 3.92 eurocents. Cash from operating activities decreased 9.8% to €5.1bn, partly reflecting the absence of cash inflows from discontinued operations that benefited the prior period.

On capital returns, Vodafone’s €3.0bn share buyback programme, running since May 2024, is complete. A further €1.0bn remains authorised; the next €500m tranche commenced on the date of the H1 FY26 results announcement, with the programme sitting within that €1.0bn envelope rather than on top of it.

Dividend policy has stabilised after the painful 2024 cut from €0.09 to €0.045 per share annually. Vodafone has committed to a progressive dividend policy for FY26, targeting 2.5% per year growth in the full-year dividend per share. The H1 FY26 interim dividend is 2.25 eurocents, unchanged from a year earlier, with payment scheduled for 5 February 2026.

Debt and the Safaricom move

The balance sheet warrants attention. The snippet cites net debt of €25.4bn (£21.7bn); the H1 FY26 SEC filing reports borrowings less cash and cash equivalents of €44.4bn at the period end, up from €42.1bn as at 31 March 2025, with closing borrowings of €51.5bn. The two figures use different definitions of net debt, and investors should be clear which measure they are tracking.

Against that backdrop, Vodafone is pressing ahead with a portfolio move in Africa. Vodacom has agreed to acquire an effective 20% of Safaricom, listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange with a market capitalisation of €7.7bn at the time of the December 2025 announcement: 15% from the Government of Kenya for €1.36bn and 5% from Vodafone for €0.45bn. Completion is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected in Q1 2026. Safaricom’s Kenya service revenue grew 9.3% in the six months to 30 September 2025, with M-Pesa revenue up 14%, across a base of 38 million M-Pesa customers and over 100 million daily M-Pesa transactions.

Separately, Vodafone reached an agreement with Vodafone Idea on its CLAM liability, settling via a cash payment of €219m and the transfer of 3,280 million Vodafone shares, per the LSE announcement dated 31 December 2025.

A current dividend yield of 3.4% sits modestly ahead of the FTSE 100’s aggregate cash yield of 3%, and the progressive policy offers some income visibility. The next test is whether the Three UK integration delivers the cost and revenue synergies needed to reverse the operating profit slide, and whether Niel’s arrival catalyses further strategic action. The consensus analyst rating from MarketBeat’s aggregation sits at ‘Reduce’ as of around 20 July 2026, a reminder that the market’s enthusiasm for the stock has not fully translated into analyst conviction on the fundamentals.