UPDATE 3-Portugal Telecom 9-mths net buoyed by Brazil growth

* Portugal Telecom net profit down but above consensus

* Revenues rise 11 pct, also beating forecasts

* Net interest expenses up 31 pct

* Shares up 5 pct

(Updates with CFO comments)

By Elisabete Tavares and Andrei Khalip

LISBON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Portugal Telecom (PT) (PTC.LS) reported on Thursday a smaller-than-expected fall in nine-month net profit as strong revenue growth at its Brazilian joint venture, Vivo (VIVO4.SA), helped offset a rising debt burden.

"The results are clearly better than expected and they are good in all areas," said Joao Carlos Fidalgo, an analyst at Caixa Banco de Investimento.

"In Brazil there were excellent results but also in the domestic market there was good development."

Net profit in the January-September period fell 35 percent to 437.7 million euros ($552.6 million), compared with an average forecast of 378 million by analysts polled by Reuters.

In the third quarter alone, net profit fell 23 percent to 184.8 million euros.

Nine-month earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also beat forecasts to edge up 6.6 percent to 1.84 billion euros, the Iberian country's leading telecommunications company said in a statement.

Revenues, for which analysts had predicted 4.98 billion euros, rose 11 percent to 5.03 billion euros.

PT's Chief Financial Officer, Luis Pacheco de Melo, would not provide full-year earnings forecast.

However, he said PT is standing by its previously announced position that it is comfortable with analysts' consensus view of EBITDA in 2008 of 2.31 billion euros and 4.5 percent growth in revenues to 6.428 billion euros.