MUMBAI (Reuters) - Coal India Ltd , the world's largest coal miner, posted a 9 percent increase in quarterly profit, beating market expectations, helped by strong sales volumes and lower-than-expected rise in costs.
The state-run miner said its October-December net profit rose to 43.95 billion rupees from 40.40 billion a year earlier. Net sales rose 13 percent to 173.25 billion rupees.
On average, analysts had forecast net profit of 40 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine data.
(Reporting by Prashant Mehra; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Anand Basu)