China Telecom has reported a 6.4% increase in operating revenue for 2016 to 352.28 billion yuan, as the company doubled its 4G subscriber base.
Net profit for the year fell 10.2% to 18 billion yuan, due to the positive impact in the prior year associated with the sale of its tower assets to telecommunications infrastructure joint venture China Tower. Excluding this impact, profit would have grown 11.7%.
Service revenue increased 5.6% to 309.64 billion yuan, with mobile service revenues up 10.5% to 137.61 billion yuan.
Total mobile customers grew by 17.1 million to 215 million, giving China Telecom a mobile market share of 16.2%. Total 4G users doubled to 122 million, representing a penetration rate of 57% and giving China Telecom a total 4G market share of 16% – up 1.9 percentage points from end-2015.
As a result of this growth, total 4G data traffic meanwhile increased by 130% during the year and mobile data revenues grew by 43%.
Fixed service revenues meanwhile increased 1.9% to 172.03 billion yuan, with wireline broadband revenues up 3.3% over the prior year.
China Telecom added 10.06 million fixed broadband subscribers during the year, taking its total to 123 million. FTTH subscribers accounted for 106 million of these customers, with total subscribers up 35%.