SAIL Q3 net slips 23 percent, misses estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - State-owned Steel Authority of India reported a 23 percent drop in quarterly profit, weighed by higher input and wage costs and sluggish sales.

SAIL, India's largest domestic steel producer, said December quarter net profit fell to 4.84 billion rupees from 6.3 billion a year earlier. Net sales fell marginally to 104.95 billion rupees.

Analysts on average had forecast a net profit of 5.7 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine data.

At 2.20 p.m. (0850 GMT), SAIL shares were trading 0.5 percent lower in a firm Mumbai market.

(Reporting by Prashant Mehra; Editing by Anand Basu)