Bharti Airtel quarterly profit falls 69 percent, misses estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's biggest telecoms operator, reported a 69 percent drop in quarterly profit, missing market expectations as a price war launched by a rival carrier last year weighed on its earnings.

Consolidated net profit fell to 4.71 billion Indian rupees ($72.8 million) in the three months to March 31 from 15.29 billion rupees a year ago, Bharti said in a statement on Tuesday.

That was below a mean estimate of 5.28 billion rupees from seven analysts, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Net sales dropped 12 percent to 219.35 billion rupees.

($1 = 64.6340 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; editing by David Clarke)