Last year, China Tower had completed approximately 552,000 5G construction projects
China Tower ended the first quarter of the year with a total of 2.05 million towers under management, after a new addition of 18,000 sites during the period.
In a release, the company said that total tower tenants rose by 96,000 to 3.5 million, pushing the average number per tower from 1.68 in Q1 last year to 1.7.
China Tower’s net profit climbed 28.7% year-on-year to CNY2.2 billion ($343.1 million), while operating revenue grew 7% to CNY22.6 billion.
“Smart tower” revenue climbed 34.9% to CNY1.2 billion while sales from its energy unit increased 70.3% year-on-year to CNY642 million.
Meanwhile, revenue from China Tower’s tower business surged 3.1% to CNY20.8 billion. The contribution of this business unit to overall turnover declined from 89% in Q1 2021 to 85.7% in Q1 2022.
Indoor distributed antenna system sales grew 35.7 per cent to CNY1.3 billion.
“In terms of Telecom Service Providers (TSP) business, the company will seize the opportunities arising from the scale development of 5G, adhering to the philosophy of shared development, building a dual growth engines of “5G + DAS”, so as to consolidate its industry leadership, and maintain the steady development of TSP business,” China Tower’s Chairman Zhang Zhiyong said.
“In terms of the Smart Tower business, the company will capture the development opportunities driven by the strategy of “Digital China”, actively leverage the advantages of resource endowment, center around key sectors and focus on tower monitoring service to boost the growth momentum of Smart Tower business,” the executive added.
In 2021, the company had completed approximately 552,000 5G construction projects, supporting the large-scale construction of 5G networks in the Asian nation.
Last year, the company’s TSP (telecom service providers) business revenue recorded a year-on-year increase of 4.3% to CNY80.19 billion, of which tower business revenue increased by 3.4% year-on-year to CNY75.85 billion and DAS business revenue increased by 23.0% year-on-year to CNY4.34 billion.
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 operators aim to build 600,000 new 5G base stations this year, including 134,000 already built in the first quarter. China expects to end this year with nearly 2 million 5G base stations, according to recent government data.
Chinese carriers have deployed a total of 654,000 base stations nationwide during last year.
The 5G network now covers all prefecture-level cities, more than 98% of county-level urban areas and 80% of township-level urban areas across the country.
