VODAFONE GROUP PUBLIC LTD CO (VOD) Stock Analysis
VODAFONE GROUP PUBLIC LTD CO
▾ What's in the 48/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read VOD
We are not publishing an intrinsic value for this one — the section below says exactly why. Everything on this page that comes straight from the filings and the tape is still here; treat the missing valuation as a known gap, not as a verdict on the business.
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Reported earnings & margins ↓
What the company actually reported — unaffected by the valuation being held.
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Who's selling & betting against it ↓
Insider and short-interest behaviour needs no valuation model.
The share count we read for VOD looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — VOD's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
The F-score compares two consecutive years of income, cash-flow and balance-sheet data. We have 3 years of income data for this filer, but no machine-readable cash-flow statement or balance sheet — so several of the nine checks have no input at all. We show nothing rather than score a partial year against itself. The reported figures in the financial tables below are unaffected.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Vodafone Group, as indicated by its negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → and the model's inability to project positive equity value. The market may be assigning value to the potential for strategic asset divestitures and consolidation within the European telecom sector, which are not captured in a backward-looking cash flow model. Investors are likely betting on future revenue stabilization and margin improvement. The biggest risk to our assumptions is the company's low franchise/durability score of 0/5, suggesting a lack of sustainable competitive advantages that could underpin future cash flow generation.
As of 11 days ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → continues to persist or worsen, indicating a continued inability to generate sufficient cash from operations to fund its investments and debt obligations. The low franchise/durability score of 0/5 suggests a lack of sustainable competitive advantages to reverse this trend.
- Trends in service revenue growth across key markets
- Progress on strategic asset divestitures or partnerships
- Improvements in operating margins and free cash flow generation
The trend, in plain numbers (2017 → 2018)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Swung to a profit of $2.44B (from a loss the prior year).
Nothing clearly worsening year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Margherita Della Valle serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Group, having taken the role in 2023. She previously served as the company's Chief Financial Officer. Jean-François van Boxmeer is the current Chairman of the Board.
What They Make
Vodafone Group provides mobile and fixed telecommunications services, including voice, messaging, and data, to consumers and businesses. Customers pay directly for these services through subscriptions and usage-based charges.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Vodafone based on expectations for future revenue stabilization and potential for operational efficiencies, rather than current cash flow, given its negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation →. The market may be assigning value to potential M&A activity and regulatory shifts that could improve the competitive landscape, which are not in the model. The company's positive net income in the latest period, despite negative FCF, suggests some underlying profitability that investors might be focusing on for future turnaround.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Vodafone typically funds its operations and investments through a combination of operating cash flow, debt, and occasional asset disposals, as indicated by its negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → and the need for a revenue/margin growth model to project future cash flows.
Growth / Revenue DCF
No cash flow statement data available - using revenue/margin growth model as fallback.
Show advanced inputs
| RevenueGrowth | 15.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Net income was positive in the latest period, though only profitable in 1 out of the last 3 years.
Geography & Markets
Vodafone Group operates extensively across Europe and Africa. While specific geographic mix percentages are not available in the provided data, its primary markets include Germany, the UK, Italy, and Spain, alongside a significant presence in emerging African markets.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)56.6NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (9 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (9)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Shares from unknown — per-share values may be less accurate.
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Shares/market cap missing or defaulted; per-share valuation unreliable.
- Shares defaulted to 1; IV is NOT meaningful — treat as data-unavailable.
- VALUATION HELD (MISSING_SHARE_COUNT): per-share values suppressed due to shares/market cap missing or unreliable.
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV null): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From VODAFONE GROUP PUBLIC LTD CO's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | — | 2.4B | — |
| 2017 | — | -6.3B | — |
| 2016 | — | -5.4B | — |