* H1 headline EPS $0.38 vs $0.24
* Revenues up 79 percent to $235.5 million
* EBITDA margin 49 percent vs 53 percent in H1 2009
* Subscribers up 178 percent to 4.6 million
By Nelson Banya
HARARE, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's largest mobile operator, Econet, posted a 58 percent jump in first-half earnings, boosted by rapid subscriber growth and a recovery in the southern African nation's economy.
Headline earnings per share rose to $0.38 in the six months to end-August from $0.24 in the same period a year earlier as it aggressively increased its share of the mobile phone market.
Headline earnings strip out certain one-time items.
Its number of subscribers almost trebled to 4.59 million at the end of August, from 1.65 million a year earlier, giving the company a 73 percent share of Zimbabwe's mobile phone market.
Zimbabwean corporates were stunted by a decade of economic contraction and hyperinflation, which reached 500 billion percent in December 2008.
Industry is starting to recover after a unity government set up last year by rivals President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dumped a worthless local currency for foreign currencies, mostly the U.S. dollar and South Africa's rand.
Econet's revenues jumped 79 percent to $235.5 million, while after-tax profit was $64.3 million versus $41.4 million previously.
The firm's EBITDA margin -- a measure of profitability reflecting core earnings as a percentage of revenue -- slipped to 49 percent from 53 percent in the first half of 2009.
Econet said it invested $122 million in network equipment in the first half and will continue to expand its share of the Zimbabwean market, whose mobile penetration has risen markedly over the last year but remains relatively low at about 52 percent.
The company's shares traded at $5.15 on Monday, down 0.2 percent from Friday's close. (Editing by David Dolan and Michael Shields)