China Unicom chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu highlighted progress on its joint 5G network with rival China Telecom, expressing confidence it would commercially launch standalone (SA) service in Q4.

Together with China Telecom, Wang said it “doubled the 5G network deployment pace and capability” as it rolled out 150,000 5G base stations in H1, taking their combined total to 210,000 sites in 50 cities. The pair are targeting 300,000 sites nationwide by end-2020.

China Unicom has not revealed its 5G subscriber numbers.

It said H1 capex reached CNY12.6 billion ($1.8 billion), with the investment for the full year earmarked at CNY35 billion. Wang stated the operators will save a combined CNY40 billion by jointly building and sharing the network.

He said through spectrum sharing it delivers the world’s fastest network speed of 2.7Gb/s using low- and mid-band spectrum.

Interim results
H1 net profit grew 10.1 per cent year-on-year to CNY7.57 billion, while service revenue increased 4 per cent to CNY138 billion.

Mobile service revenue declined 2.8 per cent to CNY76.5 billion, data revenue increased 1.4 per cent and voice revenue dropped 16.7 per cent. Equipment sales were flat at CNY1.25 billion.

Its mobile subscriber base fell by 14.8 million to 309.5 million, while ARPU declined 6.5 per cent to CNY42.90. Average mobile data usage increased 2GB to 9.4GB.

Total network capex was CNY25.8 billion, up from CNY22 billion in H1 2019.