China Unicom Cites Costs of 3G Expansion in Q1 Results

China Unicom reported Q1 revenue of RMB40.42 billion. Excluding the effect of deferred fixed-line upfront connection fees of RMB80 million, revenue for the period would be RMB40.34 billion, up by 6.8% from the same period of last year, of which, telecommunications service revenue accounted for RMB38.62 billion, up by 4.6% from the same period of last year. For the first quarter of 2010, profit for the period was RMB1.13 billion, down by 68.3% from the same period of last year, basic earnings per share was RMB0.048.


As of the end of March 2010, China Unicom was serving 147.263 million 2G mobile subscribers and 4.824 million 3G subscribers. On the wireline side, China Unicom had 101.838 million local access subscribers and 41.504 million broadband subscribers.


Telecommunications service revenue from mobile business was RMB18.63 billion, up by
11.9% from the same period of last year. Monthly average minutes of usage per subscriber per month was 257.8 minutes. Monthly ARPU was RMB41.5.


Excluding the effects of deferred fixed-line upfront connection fees of RMB80 million, telecommunications service revenue from fixed-line business would be RMB19.90 billion, down by 1.6% from the same period of last year, of which, service revenue from broadband business was RMB7.13 billion, up by 23.8% from the same period of last year. ARPU of broadband business was RMB59.5.


China Unicom said the cost of expansion of its 3G network were significant. For the first quarter of 2010, the Group's costs and expenses and others (including finance costs, interest income and other income-net) was RMB38.94 billion, up by 16.9% from the same period of last year.
http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk