China Telecom has reported a 17.9% increase in net profit for the first quarter, but revealed its mobile customer base declined due to heightened market competition.
The company's unaudited results suggest that net profit grew to 5.55 billion yuan ($887.6 million), from 6.9% higher operating revenue of 83.18 billion yuan.
But China Telecom's mobile subscriber base fell by 2.38 million to 183.2 million. Announcing its results, the operator blamed the decline on “increasing market competition driven by the
launch of LTE services and strengthened marketing promotion by [rivals].”
The company did record 3G net adds of 1.03 million, but this is only a fraction of the company's total 3G customer base of 104.14 million. Mobile ARPU stayed largely flat compared to a year earlier.
Wireline broadband customers meanwhile increased by 2.23 million to 102.33 million, but local access lines in service declined by nearly 3 million to 152.83 million.
Looking ahead, China Telecom said it is in the process of applying for a FDD LTE license, and is meanwhile expanding the reach of its TDD-LTE network in major cities.
In the long-term, the company aims to “leverage the dual-technology strengths of wireline broadband and wireless broadband [to] create a New China Telecom.”