The number of mobile phone users in China has reached 1 billion

Mobile services that have been operating for less than 4 years have now become China Telecom’s largest business

According to the latest figures disclosed by the three major operators, the number of mobile phone users in China has reached 1 billion.

China Telecom (microblogging) and China Mobile (microblogging) announced on the official website yesterday that the user data at the end of February showed that the number of mobile phone users of China Telecom rose to 132.3 million, including 41.15 million 3G users in February; the scale of China Mobile users It reached 661.4 million households, including 56.58 million 3G users. China Unicom (microblogging) said in a file submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on March 15 that the company had 160.1 million 2G mobile phone users and 45.9 million 3G users. Addition of the three, China's mobile phone users have reached 997 million.

Last year, Telecom made a profit of 16.4 billion. China Telecom Co., Ltd. (0728.HK) also released its 2011 annual results yesterday. China Telecom’s operating revenue in 2011 reached RMB244.9 billion, an increase of 11.7% year-on-year; shareholders’ net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 16.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%. The company’s net profit of 16.4 billion yuan was lower than the analyst’s forecast of 17.6 billion yuan. China Telecom's share price fell yesterday and closed down 3.11% to HK$4.36.

Mobile services and cable broadband services have become the key to China Telecom’s revenue growth. According to the annual report, China Telecom’s revenue from mobile services in 2011 was RMB 68.248 billion, an increase of 43% year-on-year, accounting for 27.9% of total revenue; revenue from cable broadband services was RMB 60.801 billion, up 12.3% year-on-year; revenue from fixed-line voice services was RMB 49.764 billion, accounting for The ratio dropped to 20.3%.

It is worth noting that mobile services that have been operating for less than four years have now become China Telecom’s largest business, which has pushed the total number of mobile phone users in China’s top three operators to nearly 1 billion.

This year, it acquired CDMA network assets from its parent company. China Telecom began selling Apple’s iPhone in March this year, and adopted a similar strategy as China Unicom to subsidize sales of the iPhone.

Chairman of China Telecom Wang Xiaochu yesterday in the performance briefing, because of an agreement with Apple, can not disclose the specific agreement, but it is expected that short-term iPhone sales pressure on the company, the long-term is good. Wang Xiaochu said that the iPhone's current sales situation is within the company's expectations.

Wu Andi, executive vice president and chief financial officer of China Telecom, introduced that last year the company’s mobile phone subsidies were 15.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.1%. It is expected that this year, excluding iPhone subsidies, the amount of subsidies will not fall, but the proportion of revenue will decrease.

Wang Xiaochu also said yesterday that it paid RMB 19 billion in CDMA network lease fees to its parent company in 2011. In order to reduce related party transactions, it will purchase CDMA network from its parent company this year. He also pointed out that the current CDMA network book value of 120 billion yuan, after the acquisition will find a third-party assessment, and promised to increase the dividend after the completion of the acquisition.

In 2008, China Telecom acquired China Unicom's CDMA network for a total of RMB110 billion. Among them, China Telecom Group acquired China Unicom's CDMA network assets for RMB 66.2 billion, and listed companies purchased CDMA operation services for RMB 43.8 billion.

Wang Xiaochu also said yesterday that the value of the North assets held by China Telecom’s parent company is about 20 billion yuan, and listed companies currently have no plans to purchase them.