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HONG KONG (Reuters) –
China Mobile (0941.HK), the world's largest mobile operator, reported its best quarterly profit in a year, beating expectations for little growth, as customers began spending more on value-added services.
China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by market value and subscribers, has about 500 million users, more than the combined populations of Britain, Germany and the United States.
"The convergence across telecommunications, Internet and radio and TV broadcasting networks will form a new market beyond the traditional telecommunications industry," Chairman Wang Jianzhou said in a statement on Thursday.
China's Mobile's average revenue per user (ARPU) in 2009, a key performance indicator in the telecoms sector, rose to 77 yuan for the full year from 75 yuan in the first nine months -- a rare rise for an industry that has seen figures fall steadily in recent years due to competition.
This was largely a result of growth from the firm's value-added services, with revenue growing 16 percent from 2008 to contribute for about 29 percent of China Mobile's total operating revenue.
China Mobile and its two smaller rivals, China Unicom (0762.HK) and China Telecom (0728.HK), spent $21 billion building third-generation (3G) mobile networks last year, following the much-delayed awarding of 3G licenses.
But China Mobile, which controls more than 70 percent of the overall market, has not aggressively promoted its 3G network based on a homegrown standard known as TD-SCDMA. Unicom and China Telecom are both building networks based on more commonly accepted global standards.
China Mobile clocked October-December net profit of 31.3 billion yuan, based on Reuters calculations of company figures, versus 30.2 billion yuan a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S had expected an average quarterly net profit of 30.4 billion yuan.
The company posted a full-year net profit of 115.2 billion yuan, according to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Its shares were down about 1 percent at the midday break, lagging the benchmark Hang Seng Index's (.HSI) 0.16 percent advance.
Like its peers in other more developed markets, Chinese telecoms operators have been pushing the non-voice mobile business to boost revenue as sale of voice calls saturate.
Shares of China Mobile and its rivals all trailed the broader market last year, with China Mobile dipping slightly in 2009 when the big board rose over 50 percent.
