China Unicom cloud revenues surge, partnerships renewed

Staff reporter and agencies

China Unicom (0762) yesterday said it expects its revenue from cloud services to surge 1.4 times and exceed 30 billion yuan (HK$33.53 billion) this year.

It also revealed it had renewed its cooperation agreements with Tencent (0700), JD.com (9618), Alibaba (9988) and Baidu (9888).

The telecom giant said it will start another round of strategic cooperation with its four tech partners in various fields, such as digital information infrastructure, high quality of life, industrial upgrading, technological innovation, smart operation, network security and talent training.

Earlier in 2017, China Unicom introduced Tencent, JD.com, Alibaba and Baidu as strategic investors and started five-year cooperation in business, products, channels, terminals and capital.

Moreover, the state-run China Unicom and the private tech giant Tencent have received regulatory approval to set up a joint-venture company from the State Administration for Market Regulation in October.

The new entity will focus on three areas: internet data centers, content delivery networks and edge computing, which is the use of augmented reality and machine learning to analyze bulk data.

Beijing has recently been signalling support for the private sector, including internet companies like China Unicom's four tech partners.

The state newspaper People's Daily quoted President Xi Jinping in an article saying "I have always supported private enterprises."

Further, the ruling party's leader in Zhejiang province in eastern China visited Alibaba's headquarters last Sunday, urging the company to promote development and global competition.

Meanwhile, China Unicom's new 5G subscribers increased by 4.45 million in November, bringing the total number to about 209.5 million so far.

Among its competitors, China Mobile's (0941) new 5G service users expanded by 23.88 million to 595.4 million last month, the most monthly increase among the three telecom giants in China, while China Telecom Corporation's (0728) net additional number of 5G subscribers rose by 6.02 million to 262.9 million as of November.

China Mobile said that the net additional customers of wireless broadband business grew by 2.26 million last month to 269.94 million in total, and those for China Telecom increased 920,000 in November to 180.63 million.