A push into the industrial services sector reaped dividends for China Telecom in 2022, as revenue gains offset slower mobile growth and fuelled profit and overall sales growth.

Net profit rose 6.3 per cent year-on-year to CNY27.6 billion ($4 billion). Excluding one-off gains from the disposals of subsidiaries in 2021, the figure grew 12.5 per cent.

Operating revenue rose 9.5 per cent to CNY481.4 billion, with mobile service up 3.7 per cent to CNY191 billion and ARPU flat at CNY45.20.

The operator added 80.1 million 5G package subscribers for a total of 268 million, 68.5 per cent of its total users of 391.1 million, which was 18.8 million higher.

Industrial service revenue, previously referred to as its industrial internet business, grew 19.7 per cent to CNY117.8 billion.

It added 8,000 commercial private 5G projects taking the total to about 15,000.

Cloud revenue increased 107.5 per cent to CNY57.9 billion and network security services 23.5 per cent to CNY4.7 billion.

Capex rose to CNY92.5 billion from CNY86.7 billion.