China Unicom (SH:600050) posted a net profit of 5.26 billion yuan ($853.24 million) in the first half (H1) of this year, up 54.3% year-on-year, while its revenue climbed 18.6% from a year earlier to 148.61 billion yuan during the same period, according to the fiscal report released by the telecom carrier (in Chinese).
The company attributed the profit increase to the surge in 3G business, which saw 42.25 billion yuan of revenue and represented 56.3% of the company’s mobile business. The company’s 3G subscribers jumped 73.9% year-on-year to more than 100 million, with penetration rate of 38.2 percent among China Unicom mobile users.
With the maturity of industry chain and environment, 3G is adopted by increasingly more customers. The total 3G subscribers of China’ three telecos added up to more than 300 million with average monthly growth of over 10 million. In addition, the release of new 3G handsets by terminal producers of Huawei and ZTE also give a push to the increase of 3G subscribers.
In order to attract more 3G users, China Unicom teamed up with handset makers to enrich 3G phone lineup, put forward preferential data plans and cooperates with popular apps, such as WeChat.