(Yicai Global) April 19 -- Shares of China United Network Communications sank after the state-owned telecom carrier’s profit increased at a slower pace in the first quarter than it did last year.

China Unicom [SHA: 600050] closed down 5.6 percent at CNY5.73 (83 US cents) a share in Shanghai today, while its stock [HKG: 0762] traded in Hong Kong fell 2.5 percent to HKD6.21 (80 US cents). The company has gained nearly 30 percent on both bourses so far this year.

Driven by innovative businesses, Beijing-based China Unicom posted its best first-quarter profit since listing, its earnings report showed late yesterday. Net profit jumped 11.6 percent to CNY2.3 billion (USD334.4 million) in the three months ended March 31 on a 9.2 percent gain in revenue to CNY97.2 billion.

Earnings growth has slowed since last year. For the 12 months ended Dec. 31, China Unicom’s net profit jumped 15.8 percent to CNY7.3 billion, while revenue rose 8.3 percent to CNY354.9 billion, according to the annual report it released last month.

China Unicom’s innovative businesses grew rapidly in the first quarter. Income from its cloud-based services business jumped 40 percent from a year earlier to CNY12.8 billion, and revenue from its big data business surged 54 percent to CNY1.5 billion, the quarterly trading report showed.

China Unicom Cloud will continue to notch up rapid growth this year, Guotai Junan Securities said in a report last month, because of strong demand from the government, the advantages of operators in data security and cloud network integration, as well as big investments in computing power network.

China Unicom’s telecom service users stood at 900 million at the end of the first quarter. That included 224 million users of the fifth-generation network service plans, driving mobile service business revenue up 4.4 percent to CNY43.8 billion and income from broadband services up 3.1 percent to CNY11.9 billion.

Editor: Peter Thomas