China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, said its net profit rose by 6.3% for the first half of 2011 on strong revenue growth from wireless data and value added services.
Net profit for the period reached 61.3 billion yuan ($9.6 billion), while ebitda gained 6.5% year-on-year to 124.2 billion yuan. Yet net profit margin and ebitda margin dropped 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively.
Revenue jumped 8.8% year-on-year to 250 billion yuan. While voice calls remain the largest revenue contributor, the company’s value added services has risen to 32.2% of total revenues, thanks to rapid growth in mobile internet services - such as mobile video, which generated 231 million yuan of revenues, up nearly 166% year-on-year.
The wireless data business also experienced strong growth, up 42.8% to 19.4 billion yuan, as there are more users surfing the internet and download apps through their handsets.
China Mobile had a total of 616.8 million mobile subscribers at the end of June, 31.7 million of which were added during half-year. This includes 35 million 3G users, which represents 43.5% of China’s 3G market.
That exceeds China Unicom’s 181.6 million mobile customers and the 24 million users of its 3G service at the end of June. China Telecom was in third place with 108.4 million mobile subscribers in the same period.
Blended ARPU, however, dropped to 70 yuan, as most of new subscribers were coming from low-end rural areas and the price cutting on roaming fee and mobile tariff plans, according to China Mobile chief executive Li Yu.