UPDATE 2-NII Holdings Q3 beats market, shares hit year-high

* Q3 EPS $0.69 vs est $0.55

* Q3 rev $1.14 bln vs est $1.12 bln

* Reiterates 2009 outlook for subscriber addition

* Shares rise 8 percent to touch year-high (Recasts; Adds analyst comments, share movement)

By S. John Tilak and Mansi Dutta

BANGALORE, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Latin American wireless carrier NII Holdings Inc (NIHD.O) posted a quarterly profit that topped market estimates, helped by foreign exchange gains and growth in subscribers, sending its shares up 8 percent to a new 52-week high.

In the third quarter, the company -- which targets business customers in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile under the Nextel brand -- added 329,000 net subscribers to its network.

Average revenue per user rose $2 to $46 sequentially, but fell from year-ago levels. NII has also reined in customer dropouts. So churn rate - a measure of customer attrition -- fell to 1.93 percent, sequentially.

"They were very strong results across the board," Soleil/Nelson Alpha Research analyst Michael Nelson said. "They exceeded our estimates on virtually every operating and financial metric."