Highlights
- Stable and healthy growth in operating results with a solid industry-leading position
- Concerted efforts to promote innovation and create new growth momentum
- Ongoing enhancements to principal capabilities with progressive 5G development
- Building new competitive strengths to support high-quality development and continuously creating value for shareholders
(Hong Kong, 21 March 2018) – China Mobile recorded operating revenue of RMB736.8 billion for the 2018 financial year, up by 1.8% compared to 2017. Amongst which, telecommunications services revenue amounted to RMB670.9 billion, or growth of 3.7% year-on-year. The structure of the “four growth engines” continued to improve, where the respective proportions of revenues from household, corporate and emerging businesses to the Company’s total revenue have increased. Total number of connections reached 1.633 billion, amongst which, 925 million were mobile connections. The number of wireline broadband connections leapt to 157 million with a robust expansion of connection scale. The Company also had an industry-leading number of IoT (Internet of Things) smart connections totalling 551 million.
Our main focus in 2018 was on further reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and our efforts yielded favourable results with a reduction in unit cost. Profit attributable to equity shareholders reached RMB117.8 billion, or RMB5.75 per share and an increase of 3.1% year-on- year, aligning our profitability over the years with the top operators internationally.
The Board recommends a final dividend payment of HK$1.391 per share for the year ended 31 December 2018. Together with the interim dividend payment of HK$1.826 per share, the total dividend payment for the 2018 financial year increased by 0.4% year-on year and amounted to HK$3.217 per share. Full-year dividend payout ratio increased to 49%.
Taking into consideration the Company’s financial position, its ability to generate cash flow and its future development needs, the Company will maintain a stable dividend payout ratio in 2019 and strive to create greater value for shareholders.
The Board believes that our industry-leading profitability and ability to generate healthy cash flow will provide sufficient support for the Company’s future development and create favourable returns for our shareholders.
Mr. Yang Jie, new Chairman of the Company commented, ‘2018 was a challenging year for telecommunications operators. Competition amongst peers changed in characteristics as products and services have become homogenized while cross-sector challenges have intensified. The value of traditional telecommunications business rapidly diminished, coupled with multiple challenges from a complex and rapidly-changing policy environment. In order to counter market competition, overcome the major obstacles in the ongoing reforms and enhance management, we continued to encourage everyone across the Company to take the “Big Connectivity” strategy even further and implement the integrated development of the “four growth engines”. Our concerted efforts and hard work have seen tangible results as we have established a clear direction of development for ourselves, delivering stable and healthy growth in operating results and continuously enhancing long-term sustainability. The combination of these hard-earned achievements is the foundation for our strength in the future.’
Read more here (PDF)
Email Newsletters
Sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos, plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox.
