Profits Leap Forwards for Largest Mobile Operator

The world's largest operator, China Mobile, has cheered the mobile industry by announcing soaring profit figures for the three months to the end of September. Third quarter profit at the mobile company grew by 38% compared to the same period last year, meanwhile its fixed line counterpart, China Telecom could only increase its profits by 4%.

China Mobile reported that the increase was down to a record number of new subscribers signing up to its services, due to its cheaper rates and an increased focus on gaining customers in rural parts of China. The company said that its net income reached Yuan 22 billion (US$2.9 billion), compared to Yuan 15.9 billion, one year ago. Sales revenues grew by 21% to Yuan 91.9 billion.

The Chinese mobile giant has recently stopped charging customers for incoming calls and launched new services such as music downloads. China Mobile's rate of adding new customers has regularly been around twelve times that of its fixed-line counterparts. It has experienced particular success in rural areas in recent months, where few of the 800 million or so country dwellers possess a fixed line or mobile connection.

China Mobile, which dominates the Chinese market for mobile services with a two thirds share of the total market, said it added 48.4 million users during the first nine months of the year, giving it a total customer base of 349.7 million users. Meanwhile, fixed line telco China Telecom lost 730,000 fixed-line subscribers in September 2007, taking its total loss to 1.05 million for the third quarter. The company had a total of 223.4 million fixed-line users at the end of last month.