Vodafone's Turkish unit said on Thursday it would shed 260 jobs as part of a company restructure, as it seeks to improve its performance in Turkey's highly competitive mobile phone market.

Vodafone Turkey reported a fall in revenue of 14.5 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and earlier this week said it planned to invest 1.3 billion lira ($754 million) in 2009, after losing ground to market leader Turkcell and Turk Telekom's Avea.

Turkey's mobile phone market has one of the highest penetration rates in Europe. The country introduced number portability at the end of last year, which allows customers to switch operators while keeping their numbers, triggering a price war.

Vodafone's investment would be focused on growth, customer satisfaction and driving sales, the company said. It also noted earlier this week it would hire some 500 staff to gain new customers.

(Reporting by Ercan Ersoy, Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by David Cowell)