Reliance Communications Q4 profit up 46%

Company's total data customer base grew 26% over last year, to 33.7 million

Reliance Communications Ltd, India's fourth-biggest mobile carrier by customers, saw quarterly profit rise 46 percent over the year before, helped by more subscribers using their smartphones to browse the Internet.

The company, controlled by tycoon Anil Ambani, made 2.28 billion rupees in profit during the quarter eneded March 31 2015, compared with 1.56 billion rupees the same quarter last year. Analysts were expecting it to make 2.04 billion rupees, as per Thomson Reuters data.

Reliance Communications, which has also been in talks with Russia's Sistema for possible joint ventures, said its total data customer base grew 26.2 percent over last year, to 33.7 million.

The company's net income from operations came in at 56.83 billion rupees, up from 53.71 billion rupees the year before.

Average revenue per user, a key measure of health for telecom companies, was up 14.8 percent at 147 rupees over last year.