MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Idea Cellular Ltd posted a 64 percent rise in quarterly profit as it added more subscribers than rivals did, boosting data and talk time usage.
Idea Cellular, the first telecoms carrier to report results for the December quarter, said it earned 7.67 billion Indian rupees (83.22 million pounds) in its third quarter, compared with 4.7 billion rupees in the same quarter last year.
Analysts, on average, were expecting the company to earn 7.93 billion rupees, Thomson Reuters data showed.
Idea is part of the Aditya Birla conglomerate and about 20 percent owned by Malaysia's Axiata.
The company has been adding new users at a faster rate than rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India, with 2.58 million users joining it's network in December.
Monthly average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric for telecoms carriers, increased by 10 rupees to 179 rupees in the quarter, Idea said.
The company's total revenue rose to 80.17 billion rupees, up from 66.13 billion last year.