Vodafone Plc reported a 56 per cent jump in net profit for the first half of 2010-11 to 7.50 billion pounds on the back of higher revenue growth. The telco had reported a profit of 4.795 billion pounds in the same period last year.

Revenue rose by 3.9 per cent to 22.60 billion pounds in the six-month period ending September, 2010, from 21.76 billion pounds a year earlier.

The company has now raised its earning outlook for 2011 to between 11.8 billion pounds and 12.2 billion pounds, as against the earlier projection of 11.2-12 billion pounds.

"As the result of strong revenue performance in each of the group's three regions and good results at Verizon Wireless, we now expect that adjusted operating profit for the 2011 financial year will be in the range of 11.8 billion pounds to 12.2 billion pounds," Vodafone said in a statement.

Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said Vodafone has a new strategy that positions the company to realise further value from non-controlled assets and take full advantage of future growth opportunities. Under the strategy, Vodafone has been offloading its minority interests and concentrating on data services.

In this regard, Vodafone today agreed to sell a 3.1 billion pounds stake in Japanese telecom investment firm SoftBank Corp. The deal comes close on the heels of Vodafone's sale of a stake worth 4.3 billion pounds in China Mobile in September.