China Unicom announced solid numbers for the first half of 2012, stating that it “continued to grasp the good opportunities of industry development and accelerate the scale development of its key businesses”. It said that it has “focused on developing the scale of its 3G business”, and during the period it added 17.51 million 3G subscribers, to take its total to 57.53 million.

For the six months it reported a net profit of CNY3.43 billion (US$540 million), up 31.1 percent from CNY2.62 billion in H1 2011, on revenue of CNY121.69 billion, up 20 percent from CNY101.42 billion.

In the first half of the year, service revenue from the mobile business was CNY60.48 billion, up 23.4 percent year-on-year. Mobile value added service revenue was CNY24.26 billion. Its mobile subscriber base stands at 219.25 million, up 20.7 percent over the same period last year.

Service revenue from the 3G business was CNY26.90 billion, double that in H1 2011, with the company stating that “economy of scale has gradually emerged”. This activity now accounts for 44.5 percent of total mobile service revenue, up from 26.9 percent in the first half of 2011.

The company also noted that its contract subscriber base has grown rapidly, and that the launch of its first CNY1,000 smartphones had also driven subscriber growth.

Supporting this, the company said it accelerated the build of its WCDMA infrastructure in the first half of the year, expanding its coverage both in terms of reach and capacity. Its HSPA+ network has been extended to cover 77 cities.

Contrastingly, its GSM business was “faced with greater pressures in the first half year”. Service revenue was CNY33.58 billion, down 6.3 percent year-on-year, which was attributed to a decline in its traditional GSM voice and text activities.

Unicom has also been refreshing its sale activities, focusing its channel sales on core outlets. It has also built an e-commerce platform and launched products that are only available for online sale – revenue from this activity exceeded CNY15 billion.

Away from its mobile activities, Unicom said that its fixed-line activities were stable, with revenue up 1.5 percent to CNY41.50 billion, as growth in its broadband unit offset falling voice sales.