(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-19 23:07

BEIJING  -- China Mobile, the nation's top wireless operator, said Wednesday that 2007 net profit surged 31.9 percent from a year earlier on fast growth in the number of its subscribers.

Net income reached 87.1 billion yuan (12.3 billion US dollars) or 4.35 yuan per share last year, up from 66 billion yuan or 3.32 yuan in 2006, the Beijing-based company said in a statement.

Revenues grew 20.9 percent to 357 billion yuan, after the company signed up 68.1 million new subscribers during the year, bringing the total to 360 million.

"China Mobile continued to open up the rural market last year," said company president and CEO Wang Jianzhou. "The rural market has become a key source of new subscribers and an important impetus behind revenue growth."

More than half of the new subscribers were from the countryside, according to the company's mid-year report.

Value-added services, such as polyphonic ring-back tones and multimedia messaging, also maintained strong growth last year, generating 25.7 percent of the total revenues.

China Mobile said it would develop more such services to fuel its future development.

China's fast economic growth, rising consumer spending and sustained development of the rural areas would translate into huge demand for telecommunications services and provide China Mobile with vast markets and new opportunities, it said.

China had 547 million mobile phone users by the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Information Industry. The figure is expected to surpass 600 million in 2010.

China Mobile, whose shares are traded in Hong Kong, rose 3.1 percent to 107.6 Hong Kong dollars.