(Yicai) Aug. 11 -- China’s Big Three telecom operators posted strong profit growth in the first six months as their investment in fifth-generation mobile networks declines and as their cloud computing and industrial digitization services boom.

China Mobile logged a 8.4 percent jump in net profit in the six months ended June 30 to CNY76.2 billion (USD10.5 billion) while revenue climbed 6.8 percent to CNY530.7 billion (USD73.8 billion), according to the financial report released by the Beijing-based firm yesterday. The number of 5G users increased by 108 million to 722 million.

China Unicom’s net profit surged 13.7 percent over the period to CNY5.4 billion (USD748.6 million) while revenue advanced 8.8 percent to CNY191.8 billion (USD26.5 billion), according to its earnings report published on Aug. 9.

While China Telecom’s net profit soared 10.2 percent to CNY20.2 billion (USD2.8 billion) and revenue jumped 7.7 percent to CNY258.7 billion (USD35.8 billion), it said in its financial report released on Aug. 8.

Both China Unicom and China Telecom made no mention of the number of 5G users.

5G is now very mature and sophisticated in China, so 5G infrastructure deployment is slowing down, Gilles Garcia, senior director of the wired and wireless group at Advanced Micro Devices, told Yicai.

Investors are focusing on 6G now, an analyst at a securities trader told Yicai.

As a result, the three carriers are investing less in 5G. China Mobile’s investment in 5G this year is 13.5 percent less than last year at CNY83 billion (USD11.5 billion), it said. While China Telecom is lowering its investment in broadband network by 16 percent to CNY15.5 billion and that in operating systems and infrastructure by 6 percent to CNY14 billion.

China Unicom said previously that its expenditure on 5G peaked between 2020 and last year at around CNY35 billion (USD4.8 billion) a year and that it will invest less after this period.

Cloud services and industrial digitization have become the fastest areas of growth. In the first six months, the three carriers’ revenue from cloud services had already reached 80 percent of that of last year.

In the first half, China Mobile’s cloud computing arm posted a 80.5 percent jump in revenue from a year earlier to CNY42.2 billion (USD5.8 billion), while China Unicom’s cloud division logged a 36 percent gain to CNY25.5 billion and China Telecom’s Tianyi Cloud reported a 63.4 percent jump to CNY45.9 billion.

China Mobile’s revenue from its digital transformation business took up 84.1 percent of its total revenue in the first half. China Unicom’s earnings from its industrial internet business made up over 25 percent of revenue for the first time, amounting to CNY43 billion, while China Telecom posted CNY68.8 billion in revenue from its industrial digitalization business, a gain of 16.7 percent from a year ago.

Investment in digitalization has an impact on operating costs. China Mobile’s expenditure on research and development jumped 21.6 percent in the first half from a year earlier, that of China Unicom surged 11.3 percent and that of China Telecom soared 27.2 percent.

Editor: Kim Taylor