China Mobile\'s 2013 profit down 5.9%

China Mobile's net profit slipped 5.9 percent year on year to 121.7 billion yuan (19.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, the company announced on Thursday. The decline ended the company's rising streak in profit, which had lasted for 14 straight years since 1999, according to China Mobile's 2013 annual report. The company's revenue from telecom services grossed 590.8 billion yuan, up 5.4 percent from the previous year, while its customer number grew 8 percent year on year to 767 million, reinforcing the position as China's largest telecom operator. The number of its 3G subscribers increased by 104 million in last year boosted by sales of TD-SCDMA mobile phones, while its income from wireless data traffic contributed to 18.3 percent of its revenue from telecom service. China Mobile plans to build the world's largest 4G network with 500,000 base stations nationwide by the end of 2014, as part of its competition with two other telecom firms China Unicom and China Telecom. The company's shares traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange dropped 3.6 percent to 67 Hong Kong dollars on Thursday from the previous trading day.