China's top three telecoms carriers witnessed declining profit growths in the third quarter of 2008.
China Mobile Ltd. (SEHK: 0941 and NYSE: CHL) saw a year-on-year 26% increase in July-September net profits, lower than the growths of 37% and 51% in the first two quarters.
China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (NYSE: CHU, SEHK: 0762, SHSE: 600050 and China Unicom) gained a 28.46% rise in January-September net profits, obviously slowing down compared with the 97.6% surge in H1.
China Telecom Corporation Ltd. (NYSE: CHA and SEHK: 0728)'s net profits in the first nine months also slid 2.3% from a year ago.
Chinese telecoms operators mainly obtain their revenues from the domestic market and suffer limited impacts from overseas markets. However, it is difficult for them to seek fast growths in coming years.
China now has had 601 million mobile phone users. Competition will be more furious because the market is close to saturation.
Source:SinoCast