The Performance in 2016 of China’s Three Telecommunications Giants:China Mobile,China Unicom and China Telecom

China Mobile at last re- leased its financial report of 2016 at March 23， 2017. So we can compare and analyze the performance of Chinas three telecommunications giants in 2016. China Mobiles performance gains， while China Telecom and China Unicom net profit decline.

Three Giants together earned a total of 349 million every day

In terms of net profit， the three giants last year total net profit reached to 1273.3 billion yuan， and namely earned 349 million yuan a day which was lower than that of the previous two years.

China Mobiles net profit was 108.7 billion yuan in last year， with a y ear-on-year growth of 0.2%. Compared with 2015， excluding the factor of one-time income brought by the China Tower， its net profit of 2016 increased by 10.5%. China Telecom earned a net profit of 18 billion yuan with a y ear-on-year decline of 10.2%. Excluding the onetime gain of the sale of the assets of the China Tower， its net profit in 2016 increased by 11.7%. China Unicom performance was still most bleak， with a net profit of only 630 million yuan and a decrease of 94.1%. Even excluding the net income from the sale of the China Tower， net profit fell as high as 82.6%. However， China Unicoms performance has come out of the trough. Especially the number of its mobile phone users successfully reverse the downward momentum. On the whole， net profit of Telecom and Unicom only make up of 17% of China Mobiles.

The income from wireless Internet service plays a more and more important role in the whole income of the three giants. China Mobile wireless Internet service income increased by 43.5% over last year， accounting for 46.2% of communications service revenue and become the companys largest source of income which was more than the voice and short MMS revenue for the first time. China Telecom mobile Internet total traffic rose 130% year on year. China Unicom mobile Internet traffic reached 1.61 trillion MB with an increase of 131.1%.

China Mobile suffers most from eliminating roaming charges

The financial situation of the three giants were influenced by that a better service with cheaper charge. The three giants have promised to cancel domestic long distance and roaming charges this year before October 1.

According to China Mobile estimates， the abolition of domestic long distance and roaming charges is expected to reduce 4 billion yuan in revenue in one quarter. China Unicoms business revenue is estimated to decrease by 1.58 billion yuan on a quarterly basis， but it is also estimated that consumer usage will rise， so it is difficult to estimate the impact on earnings. China Telecom is expected to be affected by the initiative in a limited degree， because domestic long distance and roaming charges in its current 4G package has been canceled

Reduce capital expenditure and reserve funds for 5G

The current 4G war between three operators is in full swing， but the investments for the 5G have been launched. The capital expenditure of three major operators in 2017 all are reduced in varying degrees， apparently they are doing the capital reserve for the 5G.

It is reported that China Telecom does not rule out cooperation with China Unicom to develop the 5G. China Telecom Chairman Yang Jie said that China Telecom will make a reasonable investment in 5G. China Unicom Chairman Wang Xiaochu said that although the 5G technology has yet to be mature， but now we must begin to prepare funds. The company decided not to distribute the end annual interest of 2016 and to do the capital reserve to build 5G network for the future.

China Mobile has been actively preparing for 5G. When asked about the deployment of 5G， the company CEO Li Yue said that the big investment in the 5G technology will come in 2019 to 2020 and the next investment peak will come in 2019.