Vodafone-We love ZooZoo

Vodafone is a British multinational telecommunications company that provides cellular services across Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania. It was founded by Ernest Harrison and Gerry Whent on 16th September 1991 out of Newbury, England.Their formation is traced back to the awarding of UK’s second cellular radio licence.When they were issued the cellular radio licence, they were brought out by Racal Electronics.They went public on 26th October 1988 with an initial price of 1.5 GBP per share.They have since undergone many mergers and have formed various region specific subsidiaries which have also gone public.

Vodafone currently trades at 13.5-15$ with a market cap of 41B $.They have had many mergers and divisions in the past.Originally a part of the Racal Telecom group, the brand was demerged due to stock floatation causing over valuation.Since then, they have purchased many competitors such as Orange and AirTouch.They are very active in their market approach and spend heavily on marketing evident from associations such as the title sponsorship deal with McLaren F1.They have heavily expanded their reach and formed various region specific subsidiaries.

Vodafone has high growth potential in the next few years which can be seen from the stock forecast with a high forecast of 30.87$ and a median forecast of 22$ representing a 48% increase in the last reported price of 14.92$.The more conservative estimates are of 16$ for the next 12 months which still represents an 8% increase.All 23 NYSE analysts recommend buying the stock due to their various mergers and acquisitions.

Vodafone is one of the largest telecommunications company all around the world.With a global market share of 22% directly and through subsidiaries , they represent a major chunk of the cellular services market.They are one of the oldest players in the industry and are preferred by a more aged and wealthy audience.Their unique selling point would include reliable coverage all around the world.They became the first company to offer services aboard airplanes and moreover the first company to offer commercial networking services in Antartica.They earn revenue through their payment systems in the African continent as well and also enjoy monopoly in certain markets owing to heavy government restriction on entry of new players.One of the biggest concerns currently is the development of 5G technology at mass scale.Vodafone has allocated heavy resources towards the same but there is still heavy competition over its implementation.No company as such is able to develop technology that can sustainably be scaled for use all around the world.Seeing these drawbacks,Vodafone has employed extensive resources to be 6G ready before any of its competitors and has made provisions to cover for their sales reduction this decade.This shows how long term the company is planning and how they plan to make super normal profits in the near future.These attributes make the company a must buy for investors with long term investment horizons.Vodafone in the recent times has become way more aggressive in their expansion policies to capture marketshare in global markets evident from the merger between Vodafone India and IDEA telecommunications.They believe in collaboration to achieve success and want to remain a legacy brand in the telecom sector. Although they are going in the right direction, the whole industry was shook with the reduction in cellular prices due to entry of new players which has caused a severe blow to the profitability of the businesses.They are still recovering from this setback but are now looking at the future and are making constant efforts to ensure sustainable growth in the future by associations with hardware manufacturers such as Qualcomm.Overall, it is a good stock for investors with a time horizon of anything from 3 to 15 years as they become future ready.