China Unicom booked profit growth in the first nine months of 2022, driven by gains across its mobile, cloud and industry internet units.

Net profit grew 21.2 per cent year-on-year to CNY15.7 billion ($2.2 billion), with operating revenue up 8 per cent to CNY264 billion.

Mobile service revenue grew 3.3 per cent to CNY127.4 billion. The operator added 64 million 5G package subscribers, ending September with 201 million.

The number of customers using private 5G networks more than doubled to 2,785 since the beginning of the year.

Cloud revenue grew 142 per cent to CNY26.9 billion and industry internet sales 29.9 per cent to CNY53.2 billion.

IoT revenue grew 35.6 per cent to CNY6.2 billion.

Fixed-line broadband revenue increased 3.9 per cent CNY34.6 billion.

Network, operation and support expenses increased 6.1 per cent to CNY40.9 billion, mainly due to the expansion of its network and related infrastructure.