China Mobile ended H1 with a total of 599 million 5G subscribers
In sum – what to know:
Revenue dipped, profit lifted – China Mobile posted a 0.53% year-on-year revenue decline to CNY543.8B, but net profit rose 5% to CNY84.2B amid solid subscriber growth.
5G base hits 599M – The telco added 46M 5G users in H1 2025, bringing its total to 599M, while surpassing 1 billion overall mobile subscribers.
Accelerated AI push – China Mobile advanced its “AI+” strategy with a proprietary MoMA framework and upgraded Jiutian model matrix spanning 50+ industry-specific large models.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, recorded operating revenues of CNY543.8 billion ($75.7 billion) in the first half of the year, down 0.53% compared to CNY546.7 billion in the same period the previous year, the telco said in its earnings statement.
The company’s net profit increased 5% year-on-year to CNY84.2 billion. Also, the operator reported that revenue from telecommunications services was CNY467 billion in H1, up by 0.7% year-on-year.
The telco ended the first half of the year with a total of 599 million 5G subscribers after a net addition of 46.01 million 5G customers during the period. In the mobile segment, the telco reached a total of 1 billion subscribers at the end of June 2025.
Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, said: “In the first half of 2025, amid a complex and stressful external environment marked by various challenges, we pulled together as one solid team and capitalized on the key opportunities arising from digital intelligence transformation. Guided by our “1-2-2-5” strategy, we have comprehensively advanced the “Three Major Programs”, extending critical reforms and fostering innovation. We have also accelerated business transformation and upgrades by shifting our growth engines, and pursued operational excellence through precision and efficient management practices.”
In the field of AI, China Mobile said it has positioned itself as a provider, aggregator and operator, accelerating pace in AI innovation and scale application.
“We have rapidly strengthened our “AI+” core capabilities. We have developed the Mixture of Models and Agents, MoMA. Our Jiutian general-purpose and specialized large model matrix has undergone a significant upgrade, and we have covered more than 50 industry large models. Besides, we have further promoted “AI+” ecosystem convergence. We have launched the AI innovation community and harnessed the strengths of central state-owned enterprises and the industrial chain to create an innovative national-level open-source platform for AI,” the telco said.
AI is already ushering in a new era of technological and societal transformation, and its fusion with human activity — what China Mobile calls “carbon-silicon symbiosis” — will define the next wave of industrial development, said Yang Jie during his keynote address at the MWC Shanghai 2025 event.
The boss of China Mobile opened his keynote by framing AI as the latest technological force following what he called the “Internet+” and “5G+” eras. He said we are now entering the “AI+” era, in which artificial intelligence serves as a strategic driver of economic and industrial transformation. With AI capabilities now matching or surpassing human-level performance in areas like language understanding and image classification, the executive emphasized the growing role of “silicon-based life” — a metaphor for intelligent machines.
The executive also described a future where sensors, processors, memory and control systems will work together like a nervous system. Integrated into smart devices, vehicles and robots, these silicon-based agents will become ubiquitous and serve as decision-making tools embedded across society. According to Yang, these intelligent systems will eventually outnumber humans, becoming vital parts of the social workforce and knowledge economy.
In his speech, the China Mobile executive also argued that the digital and physical worlds are on a path of deep convergence. In this futuristic scenario, AI agents will always be online and will increasingly map and simulate the real world, expanding the scope of human activities in production, communication and research. This fusion, Yang noted, will accelerate innovation cycles and improve economic efficiency, paving the way for an “intelligent economy.”
