China Unicom Reports 73% Drop in Full-Year Profits

China Unicom has reported a 73% drop in its full-year net profit for 2009 after a one-off gain a year ago was stripped out and it was hit by heavy costs from rolling out its 3G network. Even without the one-off gain a year ago, the net profit would have still fallen by 35% on a like for like basis.

China Unicom's net profit for full-year fell to RMB9.56 billion (US$1.4 billion). Revenue for the full year was down by 3.7% to RMB153.95 billion.

China Unicom's Chairman Chang Xiaobing said: "In 2009, faced with the challenges brought by the global financial crisis, the intensified industry competition and the opportunities arising from the broadband Internet and 3G businesses, the Company fully integrated resources, actively developed the market and accelerated network construction. The overall business development remained steady, the revenue structure was gradually improved and the network capacity increased substantially, laying a solid foundation for the future development of the Company."

The total number of GSM subscribers reached 144.845 million by the year-end, representing an increase of 8.6% over last year. Telecommunications service revenue from the GSM business was RMB69 billion, representing an increase of 7.4% over last year. Of which, revenue from the GSM value-added services accounted for 27.3% of the revenue from GSM mobile services, representing an increase of 2 percentage points over last year.

Last October, the Company officially launched 3G services in 285 cities. At the end of the year, the number of cities covered by 3G commercial services increased to 335 and the total number of 3G subscribers reached 2.742 million, of which the handset subscribers reached 83.7%. The ARPU of 3G subscribers reached RMB141.7.