Telecom Lead Asia: China Telecom is planning to spend around $12 billion as capital expenditure (Capex) in 2013.
Last year, China Telecom’s Capex was $11.66 billion (72.525 billion yuan).
In 2013, China Telecom is planning to spend 20 billion yuan for mobile infrastructure expansion and 55 billion yuan for wireline expansion.
Out of 72.525 billion yuan in 2012, China Telecom invested 18.794 billion yuan as mobile Capex and 53.731 billion yuan for expanding wireline network in China.
China Telecom says its investment focuses on optimization and capacity expansion in high data traffic areas, creating unparalleled network coverage and customer experience on the move.
As per its plans for 2011-13, China Telecom is looking at fiber network upgrade to push general coverage in cities with ≥20Mbps customer access bandwidth.
China’s largest fixed-line operator by subscribers said its revenue went up 15.5 percent reaching 283.07 billion yuan in 2012 from 245.07 billion yuan in a year earlier.
China Telecom added 32.76 million 3G subscribers to reach 69.05 million in 2012, up 90.3 percent.
3G ARPU of China Telecom stands at 72 yuan ($11.6) against 2G ARPU of 44 yuan ($7) in 2012.
Its mobile data revenue increased 47.3 percent in 2012 to 43.637 billion yuan.
Data revenue from wireline business increased 7.9 increased to 114.011 billion yuan in 2012.
While mobile voice revenue increased 27.3 percent, wireline voice decreased 12.9 percent last year.
The company said it strengthened development of both self-operated & co-operated applications.
Also, it reinforced experienced-based selling & coaching on 3G applications:
At present, it has coaching kiosks of around 50,000. Mobile handset Internet access revenue was around 12 billion yuan.
China Telecom’s net profit decreased 9.5 percent to $2.38 billion (14.93 billion yuan) in 2012 from 16.50 billion yuan in 2011.
The rise in expenses was due to increased marketing initiatives during the group’s launch of Apple’s iPhone to expand its high-end subscriber market.
China Mobile, main competitor to China Telecom, last Thursday said its 2012 net profit slowed to 2.7 percent.
Strategies of China Telecom in 2012
In 2012, China Telecom deepened the implementation of the two key strategies of scale operation and data traffic operation, persisting in mobile operation driven by 3G and proactively developing fiber broadband deployment and accelerated development in informatisation application.
Mobile service revenue amounted to 92.8 billion yuan for the full year, an increase of 36 percent over last year, which was the highest growth rate in the industry. The number of mobile subscribers reached a total of 161 million, with a net addition of 34.15 million,of which net addition of 3G subscribers was 32.76 million.
3G subscribers accounted for 43 percent of total subscriber base. Mobile subscriber market share was about 15 percent while 3G subscriber market share reached 30 percent, with increasing influence on the market. The Company progressively promoted the “Broadband China • Fibre Cities” construction project, and further expanded fibre broadband coverage and quickly transformed strengths of its superior network to a competitive edge.
The company promoted the network bandwidth upgrade. Wireline Internet access revenues were 67.8 billion yuan for the year, an increase of 10 percent over last year. Wireline broadband subscribers base exceeded 90 million with net addition of 13.31 million.
Arvind Krishna
editor@telecomlead.com
