After climbing more than 50% in 2025, the Vodafone (LSE: VOD) share price is already up another 5.8% so far in 2026 — and we’re not even out of January yet. But what’s in line for the rest of the year? Brokers are pretty mixed about the outlook for Vodafone shares.
The most enthusiastic of them has a target price of 149p on the stock. That’s a 43% increase on the price at the time of writing Monday (26 January). But at the other end of the range, there’s a low target of just 64p. And that could mean a whopping 61% fall. This wildly uncertain range doesn’t seem to tie in with actual profit forecasts to me. So let’s have a look at what they say.
If the City experts are right, we should see Vodafone’s earnings per share increasing 140% between 2024 and 2028 (with 2025 recording a one-off loss). Analysts predict a more modest 10% dividend rise from 2025’s rebased level to 2028. With a bit of luck, it should beat inflation — assuming that comes down between now and then.
Predicted cover by earnings of 1.6 times in 2026 would rise to around 2.1 times if the experts are right. We do, however, have to bear in mind that’s far from certain. Experts are, in fact, often wrong. Still, it does paint an upbeat picture of the prospects for the Vodafone share price in the next few years. And so far, I’m siding with the more optimistic analysts.
Upper end of guidance
It also fits in with the company’s own positive guidance: “Based on our stronger performance, we are now expecting to deliver at the upper end of our guidance range for both profit and cash flow, and as our anticipated multi-year growth trajectory is now under way, we are introducing a new progressive dividend policy, with an expected increase of 2.5% for this financial year.”
Those were the words of CEO Margherita Della Valle at the interim stage. She was referring to a guidance range of €11.3bn to €11.6bn in EBITDAaL (a measure of EBITDA adjusted for lease-related and some other items) and free cash flow between €2.4bn and €2.6bn.
With all this cheeriness, is Vodafone a clear no-brainer buy?
Hold on a minute
Investing decisions are rarely that easy. And if they seem that way, I generally assume I’m missing something. The company is still struggling with weakening service revenue in Germany — though there are signs of improvement.
And debt and valuation are real concerns for me. We’re looking at a forecast price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16. That’s fine, we might think. But net debt of €25.9bn (£22.5bn) is close to the company’s entire market cap. Adjusting for it pushes the effective P/E up to 31!
Still, if earnings do grow as well as predicted, we could see increasingly more attractive valuations in the coming years. And on the basis of that, I reckon Vodafone has to be worth considering.
