British mobile telecoms giant Vodafone has beaten analysts' forecasts with a sharp jump in pre-tax profits.

Vodafone said that profits before taxes and financial charges for the six months to September rose to �4.25bn ($6.2bn), an increase of 41% on the same period last year.

The figure comfortably outstripped the �3.25bn forecast by City analysts.

And while hefty financial charges pushed Vodafone's final result well into the red, the loss - at �4.3bn - was less than half that recorded a year ago.

City investors welcomed the news, and Vodafone shares closed up 12.5p, or 12.7%, higher at 111p on Tuesday.

New subscribers

The company said its subscriber numbers had continued to grow, climbing by 12.5% in the year to 30 September to a total of 107.5 million.

Chris Gent: Making the transition

"We are making the transition to the new growth environment enabled by our new data services, with a better financial performance than expected," said Vodafone chief executive Sir Christopher Gent.

The company's stronger performance also reflected a new focus on attracting and retaining high value customers through new services such as its Vodafone live! picture messaging network.

In Europe, Vodafone has also switched more pre-pay customers onto long-term contracts.

Sales growth was particularly strong in Japan, where its J-Phone Vodafone subsidiary managed to add new customers despite slowing overall demand for mobile phones.

Vodafone's Japanese operations also managed to cut costs, freeing up cash to invest in the infrastructure needed to support the launch of 3G services next month.

US lags

However, Vodafone's US operations performed less well, with stiff competition and difficult economic conditions slowing the pace of subscriber growth.

Vodafone also reassured investors worried that it may spend too much money on its planned acquisition of Vivendi's 44% stake in French mobile operator Cegetel, saying that it "reserved the right to withdraw" its 6.8bn euro offer at any time.

Vodafone last week resubmitted its offer for Vivendi's Cegetel holdings even though the Franco-American media giant had already rejected it once as too low.

Vivendi has until 20 December to decide whether to accept Vodafone's latest offer, or attempt to buy up Cegetel itself.

Some investors, concerned over a decline in the market value of a number of businesses that Vodafone bought during the late 1990s telecoms boom, have questioned whether the firm should make further expensive acquisitions.

These fears, coupled with worries over the depressed state of the telecoms sector, have contributed to a 40% decline in Vodafone's share price since the start of the year.