Reliance Communications Q3 net up marginally, misses estimates

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Reliance Communications Ltd , India's fourth-biggest cellular carrier by customers and revenue, missed estimates with its quarterly profit rising about 3 percent as higher debt costs weighed.

Reliance Communications, controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, said on Friday consolidated net profit rose to 1.08 billion rupees for its fiscal third quarter to end-December, from 1.05 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenue rose 1.9 percent from a year earlier to 54.03 billion rupees, lagging estimates. Nine analysts on average had expected a net profit of 2.58 billion rupees on revenue of 55.52 billion rupees.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)