China Mobile issued its third quarter performance report in the afternoon of October 20th, the quarterly operating income was CNY 481.2 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 3.9%; the net profit was CNY 82.6 billion, a year-on-year drop of 9.7%.
By the impact of OTT service, voice and SMS/MMS business of China Mobile continue to shrink, the total number of voice communication minutes decreased 0.3% than last year, and SMS decreased 20.2%. In contrast, mobile network traffic data increased 98.6% in the first three quarters than the same period of last year, which nearly doubled.
In terms of the number of subscribers, as the data shows, the total number of subscribers reached 799 million by the end of September, 2014. 4G subscribers reached 40.95 million, with an increase of 27.01 million in a single quarter and the increase rate reaches 194%. 3G subscribers are 244.46 million in total, with a decrease of 5.94 million compared with last month.
Counted with the current increasing speed of 4G subscribers in the third quarter, 4G subscribers will continue to increase about 30 million in the fourth quarter, and the total number of 4G subscribers in China Mobile will reach about 70 million, at that time, China Mobile will over fulfill the goal of developing 50 million 4G subscribers which was set at the beginning of the year.
In the number of base stations, by the end of September, China Mobile has built more than 500,000 4G base stations, covering over 300 cities, and completed the annual goal ahead of schedule. According to the current construction speed, the number of 4G base stations of China Mobile will exceed 700,000 in this year, and the number and depth of covered cities will also be increased and strengthened.