Gains in mobile and fixed-lines boost HKT profit by 32pc
Operator pursues complaint over Apple's policy on phone locking as net profit jumps 32 per cent
Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT), which reported a 32 per cent increase in net profit for last year, said its mobile operation could have posted more gains if it was not constrained by Apple's phone-locking policy.
"Our business could have been better. We could have sold a lot of iPhone 5s," HKT group managing director Alex Arena said yesterday.
HKT, the flagship mobile and fixed-line network division of Richard Li Tzar-kai's PCCW, has applied to the High Court for a judicial review against how the Office of the Communications Authority (Ofca) handled its complaint against Apple's locking of SIMs (subscriber identification modules).
In its first full-year financial results announcement, HKT Trust and operating firm HKT said net profit rose to HK$1.61 billion from HK$1.22 billion a year earlier.
SIM locks are bad. Apple has them, and yet the regulator is not acting on its own policy … We're speaking up on behalf of the consumers
HKT Trust and HKT represent the telecommunications business spun off by PCCW, which holds more than 60 per cent of the total issued share stapled units in the city's first listed business trust.