• Home
• /
• Business

China Unicom says 2010 profit down on 3G costs

Profit was 3.8 billion yuan ($579 million) or 0.16 yuan (2 U.S. cents) per share for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, the Beijing-based company said. That was down from 9.6 billion yuan or 0.40 yuan in 2009.

Revenue rose 11 percent from 2009 to 171.3 billion yuan ($26 billion.)

Unicom competes with rivals China Telecom Ltd. and China Mobile Ltd. to attract users to its third-generation service, which supports mobile video and other services that carriers hope will boost revenue.

Chinese phone carriers have faced tougher conditions since Beijing restructured the industry in 2008 into three groups, each with mobile and fixed-line assets, to boost industry development.

Unicom said it invested 70 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) last year as it built up a third-generation network and subsidized handset sales.

Revenue from fixed-line service was down slightly at 78.7 billion yuan ($12 billion), reflecting the stagnation of land line service in China as subscribers shift increasingly to mobile services.

Mobile revenues rose 18 percent to 82.4 billion yuan ($12.6 billion), Unicom said. The number of mobile subscribers rose 13.4 percent to 167.4 million.