China Mobile (0941) yesterday said its net profit in 2022 grew 8 percent year on year to 125.5 billion yuan (HK$144.3 billion), driven by higher sales from digital transformation businesses.
The telecommunications company declared a final dividend of HK$2.21, which was a 9.1 percent decrease from the previous year. But the full-year dividend, which stood at HK$4.41, saw a rise of 8.6 percent from a year ago.
The dividend payout ratio came in at 67 percent for 2022 and the world's largest mobile operator reiterated that it expects to increase the ratio to over 70 percent this year.
The dividend yield was 6.9 percent based on yesterday's closing price of HK$63.6.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization last year amounted to 329.2 billion yuan, up by 5.8 percent year-on-year.
Revenue in 2022 rose 10.5 percent to 937.26 billion yuan. Among the growth, income from telecommunications services advanced 8.1 percent to 812.1 billion yuan from the previous year.
Digital transformation revenue, which includes mobile cloud services, jumped 30.3 percent from a year earlier, contributing to 25.6 percent of the telecommunications services revenue.
Last year, mobile subscribers totaled 975 million, with a three-year-high net increase of 18.11 million customers. Among them, there were 614 million 5G package subscribers, a net increase of 227 million.
The average revenue per user per month for mobile services increased by 0.4 percent year-on-year to 49 yuan.
The total number of wireline broadband customers in 2022 amounted to 272 million, of which, the number of household broadband customers reached 244 million, the telecom giant noted.
The company expected capital expenditure to be slightly reduced to 183.2 billion yuan, including 83 billion worth of 5G-related investment this year. That was compared with 185.2 billion yuan worth of capital expenditure last year.
The capital expenditures will continue to decline for at least the next two to three years, said China Mobile chairman Yang Jie. He added that the company will aim for the capital expenditures to be below 20 percent of revenue by 2024.
Yang also said that the firm is open to spin off its subsidiaries for separate listings.
