China Mobile Chairman Shang Bing said the telecom operator will cut its Capex (capital expenditure) to RMB 166.1 billion in 2018 from RMB 177.5 billion in 2017 and RMB 187.3 billion in 2016.
China Mobile will be spending RMB 58.5 billion towards Capex for 4G in 2018 against RMB 65.7 billion in 2017.
China Mobile’s Capex for home broadband access will be RMB 7.4 billion in 2018 as compared with RMB 18.4 billion in 2017.
China Mobile will be spending RMB 44.5 billion towards Transmission (excluding access part) in 2018 against RMB 49.7 billion in 2017.
HIGHLIGHTS
# Faces revenue pressure as it plans to cut prices by more than 30%
# To launch trial 5G services in 2019 and commercial services in 2020
# Plans 5G tests in 17 cities this year
# Capital expenditure of 166.1 billion yuan
# Aims to add 50 mn more 4G subscribers
# To add 21 mn more home broadband users
# To add 120 mn IoT connections
“The company will strive to achieve a growth rate of telecommunications services revenue above the industry average on a comparable basis, ongoing growth in profit scale, continued decrease in capital expenditure and the total number of connections exceeding 1.4 billion in 2018,” China Mobile Chairman Shang said.
China Mobile said its operating revenue was RMB740.5 billion (+4.5 percent) including telecom services of RMB668.4 billion (+7.2 percent) in 2017. China Mobile posted EBITDA of RMB270.4 billion (+5.4 percent) with profit of RMB114.3 billion (+5.1 percent).
China Mobile’s mobile customer base was 887 million, representing a net addition of 38.30 million. The number of wireline broadband customers was 113 million, representing a net addition of 35.06 million.
Revenue from wireless data traffic has accounted for more than half of the telecom services revenue for the first time.
The total number of connections reached 1,229 million including 887 million from mobile connections, 113 million from wireline broadband connections and 229 million from Internet of Things (IoT) smart connections.
China Mobile has a 4G customer base of 650 million with 4G penetration rate of 73 percent in the country. The average revenue per user, or ARPU, of 4G customers reached RMB66.4. China Mobile has 200 million VoLTE customers.
China Mobile’s 4G base stations increased to 1.87 million, covering 99 percent of the total population in China. The bandwidth of backbone network has expanded by 52 percent and 73 new self-owned point-of-presence (POP) nodes were built overseas. The reach of household broadband customers with fibre access has exceeded 98 percent. NB-IoT has reached 346 cities.
Baburajan K
