China Telecom and China Mobile are feeling the effects of the recession, with China Telecom\'s profit declining once more and China Mobile posting its smallest profit increase in five years.
China Telecom\'s net fell 27.4% to 4.7 billion yuan ($688 million) as traditional wireline revenue and subscribers slumped, despite a 14.9% rise in revenue to 50.88 billion yuan.
The fixed-line leader lost 4.35 million wireline subscribers but added 4.93 million mobile subscribers in its new CDMA business to take the total to 32.8 million. Fixed-line broadband subscribers increased by 2.5 million.
China Mobile\'s net profit grew 5.2% year-on-year to 25.2 billion yuan ($3.68 billion), with revenue up 9.2% to 100.26 billion yuan.
ARPU declined 12% to 73 yuan, and average MOU fell to 478, but total voice volume grew 21% to 661.38 billion minutes. SMS volume grew 15.8% to 174.2 billion.
China Mobile added 19.9 million new subscribers to take its customer base to 477.1 million, but the new subscribers were mostly low-end users, the company said. In Q1 last year, China Mobile added 21.1 million subscribers.