China mobile's declining profits

Even though China Mobile blames the decline in its profits on the popularity of instant messaging apps, its competitors, who are also facing the same challenge, have seen a sharp rise of profits in the same period.

Over three quarters of this year, China Mobile registered a net profit of 91.5 billion yuan, down 1.9 percent year on year. On the other hand, China Unicom and China Telecom, both saw profit rise of 53 and 17 percent in the same time. Industry experts say China Mobile, the country's largest mobile operator, has seen decreasing profit, because of low percentage of customers on 3G. By September 2013, less than 23 percent of the company's clients were 3G users, compared to 41 percent and 53 percent for its competitors.

Due to the poor numbers of customers for its 3G services, China Mobile has now invested tens of billions of yuan to launch its 4G network. However, industry insiders say, it will be at least four to five years before the company sees profits from its 4G investment.