CHINA Telecom Corp., the smallest of China’s three mobile phone network operators, yesterday reported an 18.7 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit after rapid mobile sales growth pushed quarterly revenue to a record high.

    China Telecom has more than half of subscribers signed up to third-generation (3G) network contracts rather than the less lucrative 2G contracts, a proportion higher than both China Mobile Ltd. and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd.

    Its 3G network is based on an international standard and has typically trumped that of dominant carrier China Mobile where persistent quality issues has caused subscribers to defect, and prompted 2G users to opt for China Telecom when upgrading.

    In the October-December period, China Telecom reported a 13.9 percent rise in revenue at 83.4 billion yuan (US$13.47 billion), according to calculations based on full-year earnings which met analyst estimates. That helped profit reach 2.8 billion yuan.

    “The mobile Internet business in China has undergone an explosive growth momentum,” chief executive Wang Xiaochu said in an earnings statement yesterday. “Coupled with the accelerated evolution of technology and industry chain, there is a rapid upgrade in ... data usage habits.”

    For all of 2013, profit rose 17.4 percent to 17.5 billion yuan — the highest in six years — compared with a 17.6 billion yuan SmartEstimate of 32 analysts. Revenue reached an all-time high of 321.6 billion yuan.

    China Telecom, which also offers fixed line and broadband services, accounted for less than 15 percent of the country’s 1.24 billion mobile users in January. (SD-Agencies)