In Brief: China Mobile profits jump 28 percent

China Mobile, the listed arm of China’s largest mobile operator, Friday reported a sharply higher first-quarter profit, citing continued rapid growth in the number of mobile subscribers.

China Mobile earned revenue of 65 billion renminbi ($8.1 billion) during the first three months of the year, up 18.5 percent from the same period last year. The company’s profit grew even faster, rising 27.6 percent to 14.4 billion renminbi.

China Mobile attributed this increase in revenue to growing demand for telecommunications services in China, noting that it added 12.6 million new subscribers during the first quarter. That gain brought the company’s total number of subscribers to 260.6 million at the end of March. The number of mobile data users rose from 206.7 million at the end of 2005 to 227.2 million at the end of the first quarter, it said.

Most of China Mobile’s new subscribers are low-end users and this contributed to a general decline in average revenue per user, the company said.