China Mobile Ltd. (CHL) continued to show strong customer growth and solid gains in its 3G operations and accompanying data services during the first half of the year.
The carrier said it added more than 32 million new customers during the first six months of the year, which was a 3.2% increase compared with the first half of 2010, and pushed its total customer base to more than 616 million subscribers. The carrier noted that corporate customers numbered 3.1 million subscribers at the end of June, or around one-half percent of its total customer base; while 3G customers using the carrier’s TD-SCDMA network numbered just over 35 million, or nearly 6% of its customer base.
China Mobile noted that voice traffic increased 13.3% year-over-year with average usage per customer reaching 528 minutes per month. Average revenue per user was just below $11 per month, with wireless data services posting a 42.8% year-over-year increase in revenues. China Mobile noted that consumers were using an average of 19 megabytes of data transmission per month, with so-called “smart” terminals representing 15% of its customer base.
Operating revenues increased nearly 9% year-over-year to just over $39 billion during the first six months of the year. Operating expenses increased 12% over the same time frame to $27.4 billion, which after some adjustments for tax considerations returned a 5% increase in total profits to $9.5 billion for the first six months of the year.
China Mobile noted that it spent $9.7 billion on capex through first half of the year, with 70% of that capital spent on the carrier’s 3G operations that included 199,000 base stations out of a total of approximately 800,000 total base stations. As for its network, China Mobile said it has been testing TD-LTE technology across six markets through the first half of the year. In addition, the carrier has installed more than 1 million Wi-Fi access points across the country, which have accounted for nearly 50% of its total data traffic.
The carrier also ended the time frame with 170,019 total employees, with personnel expenses representing 5.2% of operating revenues.
Reuters is reporting that China Mobile has also been in talks with Apple Inc. about possibly rolling out a version of the iPhone compatible with the carrier’s network technology. Currently China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (CHA), which runs a W-CDMA-based network, is the only operator in China to officially carry the iPhone, though China Mobile did note that there were more than 7.4 million iPhones currently operating on its network.
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