ITC December-quarter profit beats estimate

(Reuters) - ITC Ltd, India's biggest cigarette maker, posted on Wednesday a 3.85 percent rise in December-quarter profit, boosted by higher cigarette sales.

Profit came https://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/86e40823-d19d-4b06-97cf-6da5b6b260e4.pdf in at 32.09 billion rupees ($450.35 million) for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2018, compared with 30.90 billion rupees a year ago.

That came above analysts' estimate of 31.34 billion rupees, according to data on Refinitiv Eikon.

The Kolkata-based company, which also makes Sunfeast biscuits and Classmate stationery items, reported a jump of 14.9 percent in revenue from operations, while revenue from its cigarettes segment witnessed a 9.6 percent growth.

($1 = 71.2560 Indian rupees)

(Reporting By Arnab Paul in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)