China Telecom said it is “striving to create a new China Telecom” by grasping opportunities following 4G licensing in the country, as well as tackling challenges from regulatory and policy changes, as enhanced competition took its toll on mobile subscriber numbers in Q1.

The integrated operator said that it will “fully leverage the dual-technology strengths of wireline broadband and wireless broadband”, as well as applying for an FDD LTE licence alongside its existing TD-LTE permit to “deploy a 4G network appropriately with regard to the government policy and business development”.

China Telecom has previously said it intends to follow a path integrating FDD LTE with the Chinese government’s preferred TD-LTE, with it looking for the majority of its network investment designed to support both technologies.

It is also working to “firmly persist” in the implementation of its “three new roles” strategy.

China Telecom said that at the end of the first quarter its total customer base stood at 183.2 million, down 2.38 million during the three months, which it attributed “mainly due to the increasing market competition driven by the launch of LTE services and strengthened marketing promotion by the peers”.

Its 3G customer base at the end of Q1 was 104.1 million, up 1.03 million during the three months.

Late last year, the company was granted a licence to operate a commercial TD-LTE service, and began its launch in February 2014. It is in the process of applying for an FDD LTE licence, while expanding the “width and depth of LTE network coverage in major cities to create superior network quality and accelerating e-Surfing 4G handset value chain development to assure superior 4G handset service experience to drive its mobile subscriber growth and investment return in future”.

Mobile service ARPU was “stable with a slight increase as compared to that for the full year of last year”.

In its fixed business, the company said that “services like internet access and data services continued its robust growth momentum, which effectively offset the impact of decline in the wireline voice services”. It said that the “fundamentals of the overall wireline services continued to remain stable and the revenue from wireline services remained steady with slight increase”.

The company reported a profit attributable to equity holders of CNY5.55 billion ($887.7 million), up 17.9 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of CNY83.18 billion, up 6.9 per cent.

Operating revenue excluding mobile terminal sales increased by 8.1 per cent to CNY74.15 billion.

In Q1, network operations and support expenses increased by nearly 31 per cent, as the company took steps intended to “create the competitive edge for the synergistic development of 3G and 4G, wireline broadband and wireless broadband”.