BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's Bharti Airtel reported first-quarter profit above expectations on Monday as more users paid for faster and higher margin 4G and 5G services.

Consolidated net profit for the first quarter rose more than two fold to 41.60 billion rupees ($495 million), beating analysts' average estimate of 38.69 billion rupees, per LSEG data.

The country's number two telecoms operator by subscribers offers premium internet and bundle plans to its users and has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of growing adoption of mobile internet in the country, thus helping its average revenue per user (ARPU).

Its ARPU, a key performance metric for telecoms, rose to 211 rupees during the quarter, a 1% sequential growth and 5.5% increase from last year.

Bharti Airtel's strategy is in stark contrast to market leader Reliance Industries' Jio Infocomm, which focuses on increasing its subscriber base by offering rock-bottom prices.

No. 3 telco Vodafone has been lagging both in terms of subscribers and ARPU growth.

The telco's revenue from operations climbed nearly 3% to 385.06 billion rupees, in-line analysts' estimates of 385.13 billion rupees.

($1 = 84.1000 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)