Telecoms lift European shares rise after upbeat Vodafone update

* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.4 pct

* Vodafone up 5.6 pct as it raises guidance

* Henkel (Xetra: 604840 - news) boosted by strong results (Adds quote, detail, updates prices)

By Alistair Smout

LONDON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Europe's benchmark index of top shares rose on Tuesday, boosted by strength in telecoms and German companies after corporate reports beat expectations.

The STOXX Europe Telecommunications sector rose 2.4 percent, the top sectoral gainer, boosted by an expectation beating report from Vodafone.

Vodafone jumped 5.6 percent after the world's second-biggest mobile operator nudged its forecasts for core earnings higher. It reported a sharp improvement in its main quarterly revenue measurement, helped by improved demand in its big European markets.

The rally in the stock lifted other telecoms, with Orange (Taiwan OTC: 4554.TWO - news) , KPN (Amsterdam: KPN.AS - news) and Deutsche Telecom all 1.9-4 percent higher.

Vodafone is a bit of a special case, as the disposal of Verizon (NYSE: VZ - news) gives it cash in the bank. However, the update shows that the environment for telcos is a favourable one as improving technology supports revenues," Zeg Choudhry, managing director at LONTRAD, said.

Telecom Italia (Other OTC: TIAJF - news) rose 3.7 percent, receiving an additional boost after a report that it could sell the mobile phone towers of Brazilian unit TIM Partecipacoes for nearly 900 million euros.

At 1124 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European shares was up 0.4 percent at 1,359.48 points, building on a 0.7 percent rise the previous day.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in German consumer goods group Henkel rose 4.7 percent after it posted better than expected quarterly earnings and raised its full-year forecast.

LONTRAD's Choudhry said that Henkel, still down 1.2 percent so far this year, had plenty of room for more gains, with much bad news already priced into the stock.

Henkel said that despite the political tension, its Russian business made an "above-average contribution" to the 3.1 percent sales growth achieved in eastern Europe in the third quarter.

Russia is Henkel's fourth-largest market with annual sales of about 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion).

Around 58 percent of German companies that have reported results so far have met or beaten expectations, broadly in line with the European average, StarMine data showed.

"So far German results have been slightly better than expected. Expectations had been downgraded before the reporting season and Russia was one of the reasons," said Gregor Kuhn, an analyst at IG (LSE: IGG.L - news) .

Europe bourses in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v

Asset performance in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v

Today's European research round-up (Additional reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Tom Heneghan)