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By Sankalp Phartiyal
MUMBAI, May 27 (Reuters) - Indian mobile phone network operator Reliance Communications Ltd posted its second straight quarterly loss on Saturday, hit by the price war which has broken out in the world's second-biggest mobile market by number of users.
The launch last year of rival Reliance Industries'
Reliance Communications, controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, said on Saturday it made a consolidated net loss of 9.66 billion rupees ($149.8 million) for its fiscal fourth quarter to March 31, compared with a 900 million rupees net profit in the same period a year earlier.
Four analysts had, on average, expected Reliance Communications to report a loss of 7.48 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Revenue from operations fell about 24 percent from a year earlier to 43.12 billion rupees.
Its heavy debt load - 428 billion rupees of net debt as on Dec. 31 - has also weighed on the performance of Reliance Communications, which is the most leveraged among listed Indian telecommunication carriers.
The latest debt figure as of end-March was not immediately available. But finance costs rose 24.3 percent from a year earlier to 9.83 billion rupees, the company said.
Worries over its debt-servicing ability hit its shares and bonds this week.
To strengthen the business Reliance Communications is merging its wireless business with rival Aircel, and is also selling a 51 percent stake in its radio masts business to Canada's Brookfield Infrastructure Group for 100 billion rupees ($1.54 billion).
The company expects its debt to fall by about 250 billion rupees this financial year after the completion of the deals, it said in Saturday's statement. ($1 = 64.5050 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Devidutta Tripathy, Greg Mahlich) ((sankalp.phartiyal@thomsonreuters.com; +91-22-61807186; Reuters Messaging: sankalp.phartiyal.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))