Reliance Communications Ltd, India's No. 3 mobile phone carrier by subscribers, suffered a larger-than-expected fall in profit in the three months through September as finance charges including interest costs jumped drastically.

The company said that its consolidated net profit fell by 60 per cent to Rs 1.02 billion in the second quarter of current fiscal, from Rs 2.52 billion in the corresponding period of previous year.

Gurdeep Singh, CEO of Reliance Communications' wireless business, blamed increased finance costs for the poor quarterly figures. He said finance costs jumped from Rs 2.59 billion in the second quarter of last year to Rs 5.93 billion in same quarter of this year.

However, the Anil Ambani-controlled company saw improvements in key operating metrics like average revenue per user quarter-on-quarter.

Revenue jumped 3.2 per cent to 52.02 billion rupees year-on-year, slightly down from average projection of Rs 52.75 billion; while monthly average revenue per user jumped from 98 rupees to Rs 102 quarter-on-quarter.

The company's planned sale of telecommunication tower unit, which will fetch the company an estimated amount of $3 billion, has dragged on for over two years. In July, the company was forced to defer a Singapore public offering of its underwater cable unit because of weak investor demand.

As of June, Reliance Communications was saddled with net debt of around $6.4 billion.

Stock in Reliance Communications has shed 16 per cent so this year, underperforming the benchmark Mumbai index that is up 22 per cent.