China Mobile, a leading telecommunications provider, has disclosed its financials for 2023, highlighting significant milestones in its 5G infrastructure, subscriber base, and revenue metrics.
In 2023, China Mobile’s capital expenditures (Capex) amounted to RMB180.3 billion, constituting 20.9 percent of services revenue, a marginal decrease of 1.9 percentage points compared to the previous year.
For the current year, the company anticipates Capex to reach approximately RMB173 billion, reflecting a 4.0 percent year-on-year decline. It is expected that the Capex to services revenue ratio will dip below 20 percent by the end of 2024.
By the end of 2024, China Mobile aims to have deployed a cumulative total of 2.35 million 5G base stations, alongside an intelligent computing infrastructure surpassing 17 EFLOPS. The company’s 5G subscriber base witnessed substantial growth, with 795 million customers opting for 5G packages, marking a net addition of 180 million users. Notably, 5G-enabled services like high-definition video calls and AI applications experienced significant uptake, with 133 million subscribers utilizing these features, including over 3.07 million AI application subscribers.
Throughout 2023, China Mobile sealed 15,000 5G industry commercialization agreements, representing a 22.4 percent increase from the previous year. The contract value for 5G infrastructure projects reached RMB47.5 billion, marking a growth of 30.1 percent. Additionally, revenue from 5G dedicated networks surged by 113.1 percent, amounting to RMB5.4 billion.
China Mobile maintained its leadership position in the dual gigabit network arena, with over 1.94 million 5G base stations already operational. Plans for deploying the world’s largest RedCap commercial network and constructing the world’s first 5G new voice network are underway.
China Mobile saw development in its integration platform, with 1,133 capabilities deployed over 580.7 billion times throughout the year. The company’s data governance practices were acknowledged with the highest DCMM rating Level 5 certificate for data governance.
ARPU
Mobile Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has demonstrated stable and healthy growth, rising by 0.6 percent to RMB49.3 per month.
China Mobile’s operating revenue for the year reached RMB1,009.3 billion, or 7.7 percent growth year-on-year. Of this, telecommunications services revenue accounted for RMB863.5 billion, representing an increase of 6.3 percent.
China Mobile said the number of connections reached 3.35 billion, representing a net addition of 410 million connections in 2023. Digital transformation revenue increased by 22.2 percent to RMB253.8 billion, taking up 29.4 percent of telecommunications services revenue.
Yang Jie, Chairman of China Mobile, said: “Our efforts were focused on implementing our “1-2-2-5” strategy and strengthening innovation and core competitiveness to promote high-quality and sustainable development. Our business results reached new milestones, with revenue surpassing the RMB trillion mark for the first time in our history of development, and net profit attaining a record high.”
Baburajan Kizhakedath
