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China Telecom revenue up 6.4%
(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2005-10-21 10:08 China Telecom Corp. (HK:
0728), China’s biggest fixed-line phone company, said Thursday its revenue
excluding amortization of up-front connection fees rose 6.4 percent in the first
nine months of 2005, fuelled by strong growth in its broadband Internet
business.
It posted 121.68 billion yuan (US$15.04 billion) in revenue for the nine
months through September.
Including the connection fees, operating revenue was at 126.78 billion yuan
for the period, it said.
China Telecom posted 37.66 billion yuan in revenue for the three months
through September, up 10.3 percent from 34.14 billion yuan a year earlier,
according to calculations by media using data supplied by the company.
The company said the number of its core telephone access lines in service
reached 206.86 million at the end of September, up from 202.4 million at the end
of June.
Its faster-growing broadband service, which many see as one of the most
promising future earnings drivers, saw its subscriber base grow to 19.17 million
from 17.37 million at the end of June.
The company said volume for its short-messaging services, a non-voice product
that allows for the sending of text messages over phone networks, reached 11.9
billion messages in the first nine months of the year, against 7.3 billion at
the end of June.
Such messages are highly popular in China and should also support earnings as
growth in the company’s core fixed-line phone service starts to slow.
China is the world’s biggest telecom market, with 342 million fixed-line
users and 373 million mobile subscribers at the end of August, according to
official data.
But, with growth slowing as the market matures and fixed-line operators
losing share as more people go mobile, China Telecom and its main fixed-line
rival, China Netcom Group Corp., are looking to newer, non-voice
services.
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