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Unicom maintains high growth momentum
By Yu Chen (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-30 08:49
China United Telecommunications Corp Ltd (China Unicom), the country's
second-largest mobile phone carrier, posted yesterday a net profit of 2.33
billion yuan (US$280 million), up 6.3 per cent from the previous year.
The A-share company would have reported a net profit of 2.75 billion yuan
(US$331 million) excluding the impact of write-downs and losses on the sale of
its paging business, according to its financial report.
It sold Guoxin Paging to focus on expanding its mobile phone business last
year.
"Despite a lot of difficulties last year, we maintained a high growth
momentum," said Wang Jianzhou, the company's board chairman and president.
It reported revenues for its main businesses last year, which reached 59.8
billion yuan (US$7.2 billion), up 31.2 per cent from a year earlier.
Pre-tax profits for 2003 stood at 24.8 billion yuan (US$2.98 billion),
registered a growth of 7.5 per cent from the previous year.
Profits earned per share increased to 0.118 yuan from 0.1 yuan.
In its financial reports, the company said free cash flow made positive
progress for the first time, reaching 5.51 billion yuan (US$663 million) last
year.
Revenue from its mobile telecommunications was 53.8 billion yuan (US$6.48
billion), up 35.6 per cent from the previous year.
The company acquired nine provincial networks from its State-owned parent at
the beginning of 2003, and another nine networks this January, giving it
coverage across nearly all of China.
Company figures indicated that by the end of last year, it had recruited more
than 80 million mobile phone subscribers, up 35.4 per cent from the previous
year.
For CDMA subscribers, the figure was 16.9 million, up 170.8 per cent from the
previous year.
Revenue from its long-distance calling, data and Internet businesses
contributed a total of 4.55 billion yuan (US$548 million), up 12.7 per cent from
the previous year.
"Besides the GSM service, CDMA service has become a major driving factor for
the company's revenue growth," stressed Wang.
According to Wang, the CDMA business began to make profits at the end of the
third quarter last year, which made the losses for its operation decline to 320
million yuan (US$38.5 million) last year from 1.5 billion yuan (US$180 million)
in 2002.
However, the ARPU (average revenue per user) for CDMA subscribers dropped
from 172.2 yuan (US$20.7) in 2002 to 128.4 yuan (US$15.4) last year, the report
said.
"We are aiming to make the whole CDMA business profitable this year," Wang
said.
"We are striving to take better advantage of CDMA technologies to come out
with more wireless data and value-added telecom services to our customers."
In order to differentiate its services in China, Wang said, the company is to
kick off its "World Wind" phone services very soon to give the market a strong
shot in arms.
The service will work on both GSM and CDMA mobile networks in China and also
operate in many other countries.
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