China Telecom profit climbs 8%

China Telecom said Tuesday that first-half profit rose 8 per cent as its mobile phone business grew despite strong competition.Profit for the six months ending on June 30 was 9.8 billion yuan (Dh5.63 billion), or 0.12 yuan a share, the Beijing-based company said. Revenue rose 11.5 per cent to 120.2 billion yuan.Mobile phone revenue rose 28 per cent to 18 billion yuan despite competition from rivals China Mobile and China Unicom while revenue for traditional fixed-line services declined.China Telecom was long the country\'s dominant phone carrier but fell behind China Mobile as customer demand shifted to wireless services. That prompted Beijing to restructure the industry into three groups in 2008, each with mobile and fixed-line assets, to revive competition and speed industry development. The three rivals have focused on mobile phones and nontraditional services such as wireless Internet access to drive revenue growth as demand for traditional fixed-line services declines.China Telecom said its number of mobile subscribers rose 19.7 per cent over a year earlier to 108 million. The number of third-generation subscribers rose 75.3 per cent to 21.5 million. From / Gulf News