China Telecom's net profit rose 13.4% on the back of a one-off gain in 2015, reaching 20.05 billion yuan ($3.09 billion), compared with a net profit of 17.68 billion yuan a year earlier. Out of the 20.02 billion yuan, close to 4 billion was from its one-off gain from the sale of telecoms towers and related assets.
The third largest mobile operator in China expanded its 4G users to more than a quarter of its customer base last year, adding more than 51 million and driving the total number of mobile subscribers to nearly 200 million. The operator has gained more than 10 million 4G customers in the first two months of the year, taking its total 4G base close to 70 million.
Reporting on growth of traffic on its network, China Telecom said that mobile Internet data traffic doubled compared to last year, with the contribution from 4G data traffic having increased significantly to 51% while the monthly average data traffic per 4G user having reached 751MB, representing an increase of 25% compared to a year ago. China Telecom's mobile Internet access revenues therefore increased 40% compared to the year before, it added.
At the same time, the operator also recorded a net increase of 28.38 million on its Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) subscribers, bringing the total number of FTTH users to a total of 70.99 million.
