(Yicai Global) April 23 -- China Telecom had 16.61 million fifth-generation-network-based plan users in the first quarter, an increase of 260 percent from 4.61 million in the same period last yearr, the first-quarter financial data the company issued today show.

Covid-19 checked the growth in the ranks of its users, but the Beijing-based firm sped up upgrading its 4G users to 5G users anyway, it said, noting it had 336.55 million users in the first quarter and their mobile data usage jumped 37.4 percent from a year earlier.

China Telecom has been promoting cloud services and its Tianyi cloud conferencing app for small and medium companies and accelerating its integration with remote education and telemedicine in light of the information demand stemming from the virus, while its revenue from cloud services is ballooning, the firm announced.

The company reported CNY5.8 billion (USD818.6 million) in net profit attributable to shareholders in the first quarter, down 2.2 percent from a year earlier but more than the CNY5.1 billion forecast by Bloomberg, and CNY94.8 billion in operating revenue, up 0.7 percent.

The firm had built 40,000 5G base stations for CNY9.3 billion and shared over 20,000 5G base stations with China United Network Communications Group -- better known as China Unicom -- as of the end of last year.

China Telecom’s stock [HKG:0728] closed up 0.78 percent at HKD2.57 (36 US cents) today.

Editor: Ben Armour