China Unicom links subscriber growth to 3G

The Chinese second biggest operator, China Unicom, may have attributed its growth in the last six months of 2013 to growth in its Third Generation (3G) subscriber-base that is in excess of 100 million currently, DigitalSENSE Business News reports.

According to the MobileWorld reports, the company having 262.17 million subscribers in total, means that its 3G subscribers made up 38.15 per cent of its total.

Also, the company revealed a net profit of CNY5.32 billion ($868.62 million) for the year, up 55 per cent over H1 2012, on revenue of CNY144.31 billion, up 18.6 per cent.

Equally, the mobile revenue of China Union was reported to have increased by 26.2 per cent to CNY100.65 billion, making up 69 per cent of its total, with fixed-line revenue up 4.2 per cent to CNY43.29 billion.

In addition, the service revenue was CNY116.48 billion, up 13.8 per cent. Service revenue from the mobile unit was CNY72.85 billion, up 20.5 per cent, with 3G making up 56.2 per cent of the total – an increase from 44.5 per cent in the first half of 2012.

The company in a press statement said it had “proactively promoted [an] integrated mobile operation and accelerated 2G/3G integrated development to drive the scale business growth”.

The company said that to support future growth it has enhanced its network capabilities “with a focus on network architecture as well as mobile, broadband and transmission networks, so as to strengthen its network advantages in broadband and mobile internet.”

During the period, the company added 33,000 new 3G base stations, and added HSPA+ 21Mb/s across its whole network, with 42Mb/s support at “some urban hot spot areas.”

Away from its mobile operation, the company said that broadband upgrades were driving the steady growth in fixed line revenue, with broadband service revenue increasing by 10.4 per cent year-on-year to CNY22.58 billion, to make up more than 50 per cent of fixed line revenue.

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