Idea Cellular Q1 profit up 57 percent

REUTERS - Idea Cellular Ltd reported a 57.2 percent jump in quarterly profit as mobile phone carriers benefit from fewer competitors in the world's second-largest mobile phone market after a long price war.

Idea, India's third-biggest mobile phone operator by users and revenue, said on Monday consolidated first-quarter profit was 7.28 billion rupees ($120.8 million), up from 4.63 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts had expected that Idea, part of India's Aditya Birla conglomerate and nearly a fifth owned by Malaysia's Axiata , to earn 6.29 billion rupees.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Mumbai; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)