China Unicom, the Hong Kong-listed arm of China's No 2 telecommunications carrier, met analysts' expectations yesterday when it posted first-quarter revenue of 8.35 billion yuan (about HK$7.82 billion).
Based on this figure full-year revenue could reach 33.4 billion yuan, a 13.4 per cent rise year on year. Last year revenue grew 24.1 per cent to 29.39 billion yuan.
This is the first time China Unicom has released quarterly results but comparisons are difficult as the company did not provide details of previous corresponding periods.
However, rival China Mobile, which has announced that first-quarter revenue reached 23.35 billion yuan, reported an indicative quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 6.5 per cent.
Revenue from China Unicom's mobile business was 6.65 billion yuan for the first three months of the year, while its fixed-line business and paging services added 1.7 billion yuan. The figures showed mobile operations continued to contribute the lion's share of revenue, accounting for 79.6 per cent of turnover.
Last year, the mobile business accounted for just 72.5 per cent of China Unicom's revenue.
