China Mobile posted operating revenue of CNY 198.4 billion for the first quarter of 2021, which represents an increase of 9.5 percent year-on-year. Revenue from telecommunications services amounted to CNY 177.7 billion, up by 5.2 percent from the first quarter of 2020. EBITDA reached CNY 72.1 billion, which represents an increase of 5.2 percent year-on-year, while profit grew 2.3 percent to CNY 24.1 billion in the 3-month period ended 31 March 2021.
The Group’s revenue from the sales of products and others jumped 67 percent year-on-year to CNY 20.8 billion for the first quarter of the year, which was mainly attributable to the growth of handset sales as 5G handsets were available with more varieties and at more affordable prices in the terminal market. EBITDA as a percentage of telecommunications services revenue was flat year-on-year at 40.6 percent.
China Mobile ended March with a total of 940 million mobile customers. Of these, 788 million were 4G customers, 189 million were 5G package users, and 92.76 million were 5G network subscribers. During the first quarter of the year, handset data traffic in China Mobile’s network grew by 37.3 percent year-on-year, and handset data DOU reached 11.2GB. Total voice usage rose by 8.3 percent year-on-year to 716.6 billion minutes. Total SMS usage dropped by 12.6 percent year-on-year to 211.1 billion messages.
Following the full implementation of the “5G+” plan, China Mobile reports it has boosted consumption of information and communications services with mobile ARPU increasing by 0.9 percent year-on-year to CNY 47.4 for the first quarter of the year.
At 31 March 2021, the total number of wireline broadband customers was 218 million, with a net increase of 8.10 million for the first quarter of the year. Wireline broadband ARPU climbed 1.6 percent year-on-year to CNY 31.8.
