LONDON (Reuters) - Vodafone (>> Vodafone Group plc) shares turned higher late on Tuesday, with traders citing a Nikkei report suggesting the British mobile operator may become a takeover target for Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank (>> Softbank Corp).

Officials at Vodafone were not immediately available to comment.

Vodafone was up 1 percent at 208.80 pence at 1459 GMT (3.59 p.m. BST), having traded as low as 205.50 pence earlier on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa, Sudip Kar-Gupta and Vikram Subhedar in London)

Stocks treated in this article : Softbank Corp, Vodafone Group plc