China Unicom's net profit up 5pc for the first three quarters, to spin off internet unit

China Unicom (0762) reported a net profit of 20 billion yuan (HK$21.8 billion) for the first three quarters, marking a 5.1 percent increase year-on-year.

The company's revenue inched up by 1 percent to 292.99 billion yuan during the period. Service revenue rose by 1.1 percent to 261.64 billion yuan, while sales of communication products saw a slight increase to 31.35 billion yuan.

The group stated that its "Unicom Cloud" revenue, which includes cloud platform and cloud services, reached 52.9 billion yuan. Revenue from data centers also increased by 8.9 percent to 21.4 billion yuan.

In a separate development, China Unicom (Hong Kong) announced plans to spin off its intelligent networking tech unit, China Unicom Smart Connection Technology, and list it on the ChiNext market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. 

The company believes this move will help promote innovation in Smart’s business, leverage capital markets, seize strategic opportunities in the internet of vehicles sector, and increase investment in key technology research and development, ultimately benefiting Smart’s long-term growth.