China Mobile shares slump after huge profit dip in Q4

China Mobile Ltd fell the most in six months on Thursday after posting its largest profit drop since 1999 amid rising spending on a new high-speed network.

Shares in Hong Kong slumped as much as 3.5 percent, the most since September. Net income dropped 12 percent to 26.7 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) in the fourth quarter, according to figures derived from annual results the Beijing-based company released on Thursday.

The world's biggest carrier by subscribers, which started offering Apple Inc's iPhone 6 in October, spent more to promote its fourth-generation network and stoke demand for data sales. Costs to market and support the faster service, which makes watching videos or streaming music easier for smartphone users, helped drag yearly profit down by 10 percent.