China Unicom was the only one of China’s big three telcos to post an increase in net profit for the first half of 2015, thanks to cost cutting efforts.
The operator’s bottom line came in at 6.99 billion yuan (€970 million) in the six months to the end of June, up by 4.5% on the same period a year earlier, while EBITDA grew by 5.8% to CNY50.46 billion.
In a statement, the telco said it had worked to offset the impact of last year’s VAT reform by transforming its sales and marketing model and reducing expenses.
China Unicom increased earnings despite a 3.3% decline in revenues to CNY144.69 billion (€20 billion). Service revenues dropped by 5.3% to CNY120.27 billion; mobile service revenue slid by 9.7% to CNY73.46 billion, but fixed revenues grew by 2.2% to CNY46.19 billion.
The firm attributed the decline to the aforementioned replacement of business tax with VAT and to its sales and marketing reforms.
Like China Telecom, China Unicom was able to start offering true 4G services in the first half of the year, but as yet it has not shared subscriber figures.
It added 8.68 million mobile broadband customers – including 3G and 4G users – in the first half of the year to reach 157.79 million, or 54.5% of its total mobile base.
On Friday the telco also released ope rating statistics for the month of July.
By the end of July its mobile customer base had reached 288.41 million, including 162.86 million mobile broadband users.
On the fixed side, the company lost just over 700,000 local access lines taking its total to 77.73 million, but gained 466,000 fixed broadband customers to reach 71.06 million.
Looking ahead, China Unicom chairman Chang Xiaobing said the company will "step up its 4G-oriented integrated mobile operation as well as the penetration and development of its fixed-line fibre-optic network."
