India's Rainbow Children's Medicare posts profit jump on strong occupancy rates

BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's Rainbow Children's Medicare Ltd reported a nearly 29% jump in third-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by strong occupancy rates and higher revenue per patient.

The pediatric hospital chain offers end-to-end services for women and children and has been looking to add more hospitals to tap into the growing market for pediatric care in India, where a large part of the population is made up of children.

Rainbow's consolidated profit rose to 582.4 million rupees ($7.06 million) in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from 452 million rupees a year earlier.

It plans to add 1,000 beds over the next five years in its target market of large metropolitan and tier-2 cities, said Dr. Ramesh Kancharla, chairman and managing director in an exchange filing.

The average revenue per occupied bed per day in hospital rose 6.9% to 48,744 rupees, with occupancy rates rising to 57.1% from 51.5% a year earlier.

The company's revenue from operations climbed 23.2% to 3.06 billion rupees.

($1 = 82.4900 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dimpal Gulwani; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)