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Chinese telco talks up FTTH net adds in 2015 as full-year net profit increases by 13.4%.
China Telecom added more than 10 million 4G customers in the first two months of the year, taking its total 4G base to 69.1 million, it revealed on Wednesday.
As a result the Chinese operator’s overall mobile customer base grew to 200.62 million by the same date, up from 199 million a month earlier and 197.9 million at the end of last year.
The telco shared its latest operational statistics alongside the publication of its full-year results for 2015, in which it talked up its performance in 4G and in fibre broadband rollout, both of which helped to drive revenue and profit growth.
China Telecom posted operating revenues of 331.2 billion yuan (€45.5 billion) last year, up 2.1% on 2014, including CNY29.3 billion in service revenues, an increase of 2%.
The telco’s wireline business accounted for close to 58% of service revenues, but its mobile arm was the growth driver: mobile service revenues increased by 3.5% year-on-year to CNY124.5 billion.
EBITDA slipped by 0.8% to CNY94.1 billion, but net profit increased by 13.4% to CNY20.1 billion (€2.8 billion).
"In 2015, the company fully leveraged the opportunities from the issuance of [its] FDD licence and tower resources sharing to achieve a leap-forward breakthrough in the 4G network construction," said Yang Jie, president and chief operating officer of China Telecom, in a statement accompanying the numbers.
Yang also noted that China Telecom added 28.38 million fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) customers in 2015, giving it a total FTTH base of 70.99 million by year-end, while its overall wireline broadband base grew to 113 million.
The telco also added 9 million IPTV customers to reach around 40 million in total.
Yang shared China Telecom’s plans for the current year.
"2016 is a crucial year for the company in building up a more favourable market position for the future," he said.
"We will firmly seize new opportunities and take the initiative to develop through reform and innovation, while striving to adapt to the changing regulatory environment and tackle various challenges," he added.
"We will persistently strengthen the core competence in network and operation and tightly grasp the opportunities from the scale development and value enhancement of 4G and fibre broadband businesses to further strengthen the company’s fundamentals," Yang said.
