India's Reliance Communications has revealed it nearly doubled its Q4 profit as a result of significant cost cutting.
The company reported a net profit for the March quarter of 3.32 billion rupees ($60 million), up from 1.68 billion rupees a year earlier.
This result trounced the estimates of financial analysts quizzed by both Reutersand Bloombergin separate polls, and represents the company's first profit rise in 11 quarters.
Revenue fell nearly a third year-on-year to 53.10 billion rupees, but this still beat analysts' expectations of 50.87 billion rupees as cited in the Reuters poll.
But the company managed to slash expenditure by a third from the year-ago quarter, as a result of a 73% decrease in depreciation and amortisation costs.
RCom is seeking to address the sizeable debts accrued from its participation in the 2010 3G and wireless broadband auctions, and is pursuing a sale of assets including tower unit Reliance Infracom in order to cover the costs.
The company is also rumored to be planning to raise around $1 billion by listing its subsea cable assets on the Singapore stock market.
Reliance Communications is India's second largest mobile operator by subscribers, and claims to be the fourth largest in the world.