China Telecom’s net declined 9.1% year-on-year to 4.27 billion yuan ($623m), the company has announced in its first Q1 result filing.
Operating revenue was up 3.6% year-on-year to 52.71 billion yuan, and ebitda was 27% higher, the state-owned carrier said Wednesday.
However, ebitda margin of 43.2% had improved 8.5 points over Q4 last year.
It shed another 520,000 household lines to take the total to 111.72 million, but added 2.38 million broadband lines to reach 55.84 million. It also lost 3.8 million users from the declining PHS service Xiaolingtong, which is due to shut down shortly.
In its major growth area of mobile, China Telecom now has 65.45 million subs - including 5.57 million 3G customers - up 9.36 million for the quarter.
It said it would continue to leverage the advantages of its “integrated” fixed-mobile operations.