China Mobile posted modest revenue growth in the first nine months with profit flat, as mobile tariffs continued to slide and costs increased as a result of 5G investments.

Chairman Yang Jie said the company aims to tackle growing 5G and business transformation expenses by taking steps to reduce costs and enhance efficiency, focusing resources in areas to promote growth.

The executive noted strong cost controls implemented following Covid-19 (coronavirus) restrictions over H1, along with a recovery in revenue, contributed to net profit growth in Q3, without going into more detail on the quarter.

But profit was flat year-on-year over the first nine months at CNY81.6 billion ($12.3 billion), with operating revenue up 1.4 per cent to CNY574.4 billion.

A 2.5 per cent increase in service revenue to CNY525.7 billion was partly offset by a 9.2 per cent drop in product sales to CNY48.7 billion.

Mobile ARPU continued to decline, dropping 2.6 per cent to CNY48.90. Subscriber numbers grew 4 million to 946 million, with 114 million on 5G packages.

Average data usage per customer increased 38 per cent to 91.GB per month.