China Telecom said that in the first half of 2013 its mobile business “achieved further breakthrough in business scale”, resulting in a “remarkable” increase in net profit which grew at a faster pace than revenue.

In a statement, Wang Xiaochu, chairman of the company, said that demand for “social informatisation” will continue, bringing in further scale expansion of its 3G proposition.

The company’s subscriber base totals 175 million, of which 3G subscribers accounted for 50 per cent. 3G smartphone subscribers made up 44 per cent of the total.

On a group level, the company reported a net profit of CNY10.21 billion ($1.67 billion), up 15.9 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of CNY157.52 billion, up 14.1 per cent.

Excluding mobile terminal sales, operating revenue was CNY139.21 billion, up 10 per cent.

Mobile revenue was CNY72.91 billion, up 34.7 per cent. Mobile service revenue was CNY54.6 billion, an increase of 28.3 per cent year-on-year.

According to Reuters, China Telecom’s handset subsidies increase by 22 per cent to CNY14.08 billion, in line with the launch of Apple’s latest iPhone in the country.

The company’s statement was not all unqualified good news, however. It said the global economy is “now at a deepened adjustment stage”, with uncertainties in domestic regulatory products and “the evolution of new technologies is driving up industry competition”.

In response, it said it will “promote the rapid development of emerging businesses through open cooperation to progressively accomplish fundamental enhancement of [the] business structure”.

It also noted it will “proactively participate in discussion to strive for the most favourable regulatory policies, especially on the issuance of [the] LTE licence”.

China Telecom said it intends to deploy a test LTE network “timely and appropriately”.

And “taking into consideration the cash flow of the company and the capital requirements for further development”, the board has opted not to pay an interim dividend this year, in order to maintain “adequate funding flexibility”.

Decisions on a full-year dividend will be made subsequently.