(Yicai Global) Aug. 24 -- State-owned China Telecommunications Corp. [HKG:0728], or China Telecom, one of the country's three major carriers, reported net profit of CNY12.54 billion (USD1.88 billion) for the first half, a rise of 7.4 percent from a year earlier.

Operating income in the first six months reached CNY184 billion (USD27.6 billion), up 4.1 percent annually, while service income was CNY166 billion, an increase of 6.8 percent.

China Telecom had a total of 230 million subscribers as of the end of June, an annual rise of 14.85 million. The firm's 4G subscribers now number 152 million, or 66 percent of the total, up 30.2 million.

Mobile data usage rose 126 percent while the number of cable broadband subscribers reached 128 million, an increase of 4.98 million.

A mixed-ownership reform is not the only way to go, said Yang Jie,  China Telecom's chairman, in response to a question about competitor China United Network Communications Ltd.'s [SHA:600050] recent mixed-ownership reform which brought in investment from tech giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA] and Tencent Holdings Ltd. [HKG:0700].

"A corporate level reform is not something we can decide," he said.

China Telecom's secondary subsidiaries E-surfing Reading Culture Communications Co., Xuancai Interactive Network Technology Co. and Tianyi Video Co. introduced private investment as early as in 2014.