By Oliver Griffin

Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.LN) said on Tuesday that it was raising its outlook for fiscal 2018, following a strong performance in the first half of the year.

The world's second-largest mobile carrier by subscribers said in the six months ended Sept. 30 that it made a pretax profit of 2.16 billion euros ($2.52 billion), up 55% on the same period a year earlier.

The company said that revenue fell to EUR23.01 billion, from EUR24.05 billion in September 2016, which Vodafone attributed to the deconsolidation of Vodafone Netherlands, and foreign exchange pressures. The phone network said that its organic service revenue in the first half of the year grew 1.7%, and also raised the interim dividend by 2.1% to 4.84 euro cents.

Vodafone said that revenue grew organically in most of its markets, driven by mobile data and its broadband service. However, Vodafone also said that competition in India remained intense, with service revenue declining 15.8% due to intense price competition.

The company said it was updating its guidance for the year, and expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, ebitda, to grow organically by around 10%, and added that it expects it free cash flow to exceed EUR5 billion.

Write to Oliver Griffin at oliver.griffin@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 14, 2017 02:49 ET (07:49 GMT)

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