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Thursday’s a busy day for corporate earnings announcements in Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

A busy day for results: slew of corporate heavyweights set to report on Thursday

China Mobile, CK Hutchison, Cheung Kong Property Holdings, PCCW and Alibaba, follow on from Li Ning and chipmaker SMIC

A slew of corporate heavyweights report latest earnings later on Thursday, and early indications are the results will be strong:

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier, dipped 0.1 per cent to HK$96 in morning trade, however, the shares have jumped 9 per cent so far this year.

The telecoms giant is scheduled to release its half-years around 4pm, and the consensus is for net profit of between 57.5 billion yuan to 59.7 billion yuan, up 0.4 per cent to 4 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

CK Hutchison, the conglomerate owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, dropped 0.6 per cent to trade at HK$93.35 on Thursday morning. and has now dropped 12 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Announcing half-year results at around 4.15pm, analysts surveyed by Reuters estimate net profit to rise 4 per cent to HK$15.55 billion from HK$14.94 billion a year earlier.

Cheung Kong Property Holdings, controlled by Li Kai-shing, slipped 0.2 per cent to trade at HK$57.7, and analysts polled by South China Morning Post expect the property developer’s core earnings to be between HK$6.3 billion to HK$10.6 billion.

PCCW, Hong Kong’s telecoms service provider, retreated 0.4 per cent to trade at HK$5.71, before its scheduled release of earnings at 5pm.

New York-listed Alibaba Group is scheduled to announce its fiscal first-quarter results at 6pm. The stock advanced 2.5 per cent on Wendesday night to close at US$87.33.

Analysts polled by Reuters anticipate operating income to jump 48 per cent to 30 billion yuan, bolstered by fast growth in gross merchandise sales and cloud computing business.

Already on Thursday, shares in Chinese sportswear maker Li Ning and chipmaker SMIC both soared after reporting better-than-expected results.

Li Ning shares pulled 8 per cent higher to HK$4.46, after revealing a 113 million yuan profit for the first half of 2016, compared with a loss of 29 million yuan a year earlier.

SMIC posted a 21 per cent jump in net profit for the second quarter, blowing past market estimates.

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