MUMBAI (Reuters) - Nestle India Ltd reported first-quarter net profit below analysts' estimates as it struggles to regain market share of its once-popular Maggi noodles that were temporarily banned last year over safety concerns.
The India unit of Nestle SA, the world's largest packaged food company, reported a net profit of 2.59 billion rupees ($38.87 million) for the January-March quarter, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected 2.87 billion rupees on average.
The net profit was well below the 3.20 billion rupees Nestle India posted a year earlier, before Indian regulators found some samples of its Maggi noodles contained unsafe levels of lead.
The company had to pull the noodles off the shelves for nearly six months, and restarted sales only in November, after tests carried out at Indian government-accredited laboratories showed the noodles were safe for consumption.
($1 = 66.6250 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
