The one-time sale of its towers and related assets last year has pumped up China telecom’s profits by 13.4 percent to about $606 million for 2015, according to lightreading.com. The company reported that its sales for the year also increased by 2.1 percent or by $50.9 billion. The carrier is the smallest of China’s big three mobile companies. China Telecom Corp. (NYSE: CHA) performed better than its two competitors, market leader China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL) and struggling China Unicom Ltd. (NYSE: CHU) which reported a loss of 14.26 million mobile customers in 2015, giving it 252.32 million in December, including 44.16 million 4G users.
Unlike China Mobile, China Telecom was able to prevent average revenue per user (ARPU) from declining last year, although it did not provide details of ARPU figures. China Mobile’s said its monthly ARPU fell from $9.07 in 2014 to $8.61 last year. Lightreading.com reported China Telecom was also successful in the country’s fixed-line broadband sector, gaining 6.11 million customers in 2015 to give it 113 million overall. The company noted its investments in 4G and a fiber-optic network build out last year triggered a sharp rise in capital expenditure, which rose from $11.8 billion in 2014 to $16.8 billion. However, spending is expected to fall to $14.9 billion this year. China Mobile also expects to spend less this year, guiding for a decline in capital expenditure this year, from $30.1 billion last year to about $28.6 billion in 2016.
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