Dr. Reddy's third-quarter profit surges on strong growth in emerging markets

(Reuters) - Indian generic drugmaker Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd posted a 65.3 percent surge in quarterly profit on Friday, handily beating market expectations, helped by strong growth in emerging markets.

Third-quarter net profit came in at 5 billion rupees ($70.10 million), compared with 3.03 billion rupees a year earlier, the company said.

Analysts on average expected the Hyderabad-based company to post a profit of 3.94 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

"We continued to improve our performance in the third quarter, supported by significant growth in emerging markets and India," Chief Executive Officer GV Prasad said.

Revenue from emerging markets rose 31 percent to 7.7 billion rupees, aided by new product launches, a pick-up in momentum in new markets and better volume offtake in existing markets, the company said.

Dr.Reddy's shares were trading 2.8 percent higher in a broader Mumbai market that was up 0.62 percent at 0940 GMT

($1 = 71.3300 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in BENGALURU; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Subhranshu Sahu)