BEIJING
China Mobile, the world's biggest mobile operator by subscribers, reported that its annual net profit fell by 5.9 per cent to 121.7 billion yuan (US$19.8 billion), its first decline in 14 years.
The company blamed the drop on pressure from messaging services such as Wechat, a mobile app.
China Mobile said it plans to increase its spending, including investing 75 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion) on enlarging the high-speed 4G service it launched in December 2013 as it targets 50 million new users on its network this year and bets on people needing larger amounts of data more of them connect using applications like WeChat to avoid SMS charges that were previously the profitable sources of revenue.
The company´s income from its telecommunication services has increased by 5.4 percent to 590.8 billion yuan (US$94.9 billion) and its customer numbers are also up by 8 percent to 767 million compared to 2012.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
