China Tower’s net profit in H1 climbed 22.2% year-on-year to CNY4.22 billion
China Tower ended the first half of the 2022 with a total of 2.05 million towers under management, after a new addition of 11,000 sites during the period.
In a release, the company said that total tower tenants rose by 42,000 to 3.30 million, pushing the average number per tower from 1.60 as of the end of 2021 to 1.62.
China Tower’s net profit in H1 climbed 22.2% year-on-year to CNY4.22 billion ($624 million), while operating revenue grew 6.6% to CNY45.47 billion.
“Smart tower” revenue amounted to CNY2.58 billion in the first half of the year, climbing 39.4% year-on-year, while sales from the company’s energy unit increased 61.3% year-on-year to CNY1.42 billion.
Tower business revenue grew by 2.3% to CNY39.6 billion, while indoor distributed antenna system (DAS) sales increased by 32% to CNY2.8 billion.
China Tower’s DAS business covered buildings with a cumulative area of 5,970 million square meters as of the end of June, up by 35.4% from the same period last year.
“Given the increasing coverage and penetration of 5G network in China, we maintained our focus on the latest market trends and evolving customer demands over the first half of the year and furthered resource coordination and sharing. As a result, we were able to build large-scale 5G networks in a cost- effective and highly efficient manner through offering innovative service and construction models,” China Tower said. “The company undertook 318,000 5G base-station demand in the first half of 2022, with the cumulative number reaching 1.544 million as of June 30, 2022, of which 97% were fulfilled by sharing existing resources. Additionally, increasing DAS construction demand promoted even greater growth of DAS business.”
China Tower was formed in 2014, when the country’s mobile carrier China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom transferred their telecom towers to the new company. The three telcos decided to create the new entity in a move to reduce redundant construction of telecommunications infrastructure across the country. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom currently own a 38%, 28.1% and 27.9% stake respectively. State-owned asset manager China Reform Holding owns the remaining 6%.
Chinese carriers have already deployed over 1.85 million 5G base stations across the country, according to recent data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The ministry reported that Chinese carriers deployed nearly 300,000 5G base stations during the second quarter of the year.
Also, mobile operators are expected to add a total of 600,000 base stations to boost 5G infrastructure across China during 2022.
China ended June with a total of 927.44 million subscribers in the 5G segment, according to the carriers’ latest available figures.
Chinese operators recorded a net gain of 28.2 million 5G subscribers in June.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, added a total of 15.81 million 5G subscribers during June. The operator said it ended last month with 510.94 million 5G subscribers.
