(Yicai Global) March 24 -- Shares in China Mobile advanced in Shanghai and Hong Kong today after the Chinese telecoms giant said it logged a 7.5 percent uptick in net profit last year from the year before largely due to the rapid expansion of its go-digital businesses, such as smart home devices and mobile cloud services.

China Mobile’s Shanghai stock [SHA:600941] was trading up 4.8 percent at CNY67.65 (USD10.61) as of 11:30 a.m. China time today. Its Hong Kong share price [HKG:0941] was trading up 3.96 percent at HKD56.50 (USD7.22). It had earlier gained 5 percent to HKD57.10.

China Mobile, which in January went public on the Shanghai bourse in the mainland’s largest listing in nearly a decade, raked in profit of CNY115.9 billion (USD18.1 billion) in 2021, the firm said in its latest earnings report released yesterday. Revenue was up 10.4 percent to CNY848.3 billion (USD133.1 billion).

Earnings from its digitalization segments jumped 26.3 percent year on year to CNY159.4 billion (USD25 billion), contributing nearly 60 percent of the revenue increment and becoming the biggest driver of growth, it said. Income from its individual market business nudged up 1.4 percent year on year to CNY483.4 billion, reversing a downward trend.

A year-end dividend of HKD2.43 (USD0.31) per share will be issued to shareholders, the company said. This is on top of a HKD1.63 interim dividend paid last year. The combined value of HKD4.06 per share is nearly 25 percent more than what was paid out in 2020 and brings the proportion of profit that is paid out in cash bonuses to 60 percent.

The number of customers increased by 14.9 million last year to 957 million, sealing China Mobile's position as the world’s biggest mobile network operator by subscribers. Some 387 million of these are fifth-generation network subscribers, more than double than the previous year.

China Mobile invested CNY114 billion (USD17.9 billion) in 5G last year, opening over 730,000 5G base stations of which 200,000 are 700MHz 5G base stations. This year the Beijing-based company will build another 280,000 700 MHz base stations, which will give it nationwide 700 MHz coverage, Chairman Yang Jie said at the earnings call. China Mobile is already the world leader in terms of 5G network scale and size of customer base.

Editor: Kim Taylor