China Unicom Posts Revenue Decline in 1H2009

Citing the general economic malaise, mobile voice substitution of traditional fixed lines, and competitive pressure, China Unicom reported first half 2009 operating revenue of RMB76.32 billion. Service revenue amounted to RMB74.51 billion, representing a decline of 4.3% over the same period of last year and a decline of 3.3% over the same period of last year when compared on the same basis. Service revenue of the GSM business reached RMB34.19 billion, representing an increase of 5.7% over the same period of last year.


Service revenue of the fixed-line business reached RMB 40.19 billion, representing a decline of 11.3% over the same period of last year and a decline of 9.7% over the same period of last year when compared on the same basis. Of the revenue from the fixed-line business, revenue from the fixed-line broadband service was RMB11.73 billion, representing an increase of 10.3% over the same period of last year.


Due to the impact of corporate restructuring and intensified industry competition, the company recorded profit of RMB6.62 billion, representing a decline of 42.1% when compared with profit from the continuing operations over the same period of last year and a decline of 33.2% when compared on the same basis. Basic earnings per share was RMB0.28.


In the first half of the year, China Unicom added 7.012 million GSM subscribers, taking the total subscriber number to 140.377 million. ARPU was RMB41.7, representing a decline of 4.3% over the same period of last year and remained stable compared with the second half of last year. The company's mobile value-added services accounted for 26.8% of the total revenue from mobile services, representing an increase of 2.5 percentage points over the same period of last year. Revenue from GPRS reached RMB1.32 billion.



In the first half of the year, the net addition of fixed-line broadband subscribers was 4.832 million, taking the total subscriber number to 34.913 million. ARPU was RMB60.2, representing a decline of 13.5%; a total of 1.118 million local telephone subscribers were lost, taking the total subscriber number to 108.452 million. The revenue proportion of the fixed-line non-voice business to the total fixed-line service revenue (excluding upfront connection fees) reached 47.2%.


China Unicom also noted that since obtaining its 3G (WCDMA) operating license on 7 January, it has moved forward aggressively on developing its 3G network construction and preparing for service launch. On May 17th, China Unicom initiated 3G pre-commercial friendly trials in 56 cities including various 3G services, such as mobile internet, mobile search, mobile music, mobile TV, video telephony, mobile newspaper and wireless internet access cards.


China Unicom has also established a new full-service brand -- "WO" -- which was launched on April 28th.
http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk