UPDATE 3-Entergy misses quarterly profit estimates on higher expenses, lower sales

(Adds sales details and outlook in paragraphs 2, 5, 6-7)

April 24 (Reuters) - Electric utility Entergy Corp missed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as operating expenses rose and milder weather dampened sales, the company said on Wednesday.

Entergy, which provides electricity and natural gas to more than three million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, said its sales fell 0.5% to 31,172 gigawatt-hours (GWh) largely due to lower demand from commercial and industrial customers. Residential sales rose 1.4%.

Shares of the company fell 1.2% to $105.86.

On an adjusted basis, Entergy posted a profit of $1.08 per share for the quarter ended on March 31, below analysts' average estimate of $1.51, LSEG data showed.

First-quarter results were reduced by operating and maintenance costs, including higher healthcare claims and more planned outages at non-nuclear plants, quarter over quarter, the company said.

Operating expenses rose 1.6% to $2.6 billion from the year-ago quarter.

The company projected long-term annual growth of 6% to 8% as it signed on large new customers, including data centers.

Entergy said it entered into eight new electric service agreements with industrial customers, amounting to 1.1 gigawatts of new load, in the first quarter, including for an Amazon Web Services data center in Mississippi.

The company also reported a 12-cents-per-share impact from weather, as winter storms at the start of the year caused outages in its key service territories.

Quarterly income fell to $75 million from $311 million in the year-ago quarter due to higher depreciation and amortization expenses in the utilities segment.

The company, however, reaffirmed its full-year adjusted profit forecast between $7.05 and $7.35 per share. (Reporting by Kabir Dweit in Bengaluru and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Ravi Prakash Kumar, Vijay Kishore and Richard Chang)