Chinese full-service provider China Mobile has booked net profit of CNY76.17 billion (USD10.6 billion) for the six months to end-June 2023, up 8.4% year-on-year, driven by an increase in operating revenue of 6.8%, to CNY530.72 billion. EBITDA for the period grew by 5.5% to CNY183.46 billion. Mobile reported a 6.1% uptick in service revenue, including growth across all four its ‘CHBN’ segments: ‘Customer’ – retail mobile services; ‘Home’ – fixed voice and broadband, pay-TV and smart home services and applications; ‘Business’ – a broad range of services including corporate services, mobile cloud, industrial 5G solutions and data centres; and ‘New’, consisting of international services, digital content and financial technology solutions.
The Customer market saw the smallest increase in revenue at just 1.3% but makes up a little over 57% of the group’s service revenue, generating turnover of CNY259.40 billion for the six-month period. The group counted a total of 985.39 million mobile customers as at end-June 2023 (up from 969.85 million in H1 2022), including 393.26 million 5G network subscriptions (262.64 million IN June 2022). Revenue growth in the segment was hampered by price competition, with overall mobile ARPU inching upwards from CNY52.3 to CNY52.4 between H1 2022 and H1 2023, whilst 5G ARPU fell from CNY85.0 to CNY81.1 over the same period.
Mobile’s Home grouping booked a 9.3% increase in turnover, to CNY64.95 billion, with the number of residential fixed broadband subscriptions increasing to 254.85 million by June 2023 (from 230.34 million a year earlier), and ARPU improving slightly y-o-y from CNY43.0 to CNY43.3. Business market revenue grew by 14.6% to CNY104.39 billion, with the number of corporate customers increasing to 24.3 million by mid-2023. Revenue from dedicated 5G networks grew by 69.7% to CNY2.51 billion. Finally, New business saw the biggest uptick in revenue, growing by 18.4% y-o-y to CNY23.51 billion.
Original article can be seen at: