Bharti Airtel Ltd reported a worse-than-expected quarterly loss on Thursday, as the company lost more customers and spent more to upgrade its 4G network during the quarter.

The company's net loss for the three months ended June 30 was Rs 2,866 crore ($415.00 million), compared to a profit of Rs 97.3 crore a year ago. Revenue rose 4.7 percent to Rs 20,738 crore.

Analysts, on average, were expecting the company to report a loss of Rs 1,017 crore, according to Refinitiv data.

New Delhi-based Airtel said its monthly churn rate in mobile services business, a measure of the number of customers it lost, grew to 2.6 percent for the quarter, compared with 2 percent a year ago.

Government data showed last month Reliance Industries Ltd's telecom unit Jio pipped Airtel to become India's second-largest operator by subscribers as of May.

First Published:Aug 1, 2019 5:01 PM IST