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China Unicom expects decline in mobile, broadband ARPU figures

Published: 27 May 2009 23:15:15 PST

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May. 28, 2009 (China Knowledge) - China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd<600050><0762><CHU>, the country's second largest telecom operator, expects average revenue per user (ARPU) month for its mobile and broadband services to decline in the second half of this year, said Chairman Chang Xiaobing on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Income from 3G services, which were officially launched in 55 cities nationwide on May 17, however, is expected to offset part of the loss, said Chang.

China Unicom's average ARPU for 2008 dropped to RMB 42.3 from RMB 45.7 in 2007.

The total number of its mobile service subscribers increased from 137.69 in March to 138.83 million in April.

In January, China Unicom was authorized to offer 3G services based on Europe's WCDMA system. The company offers more than 20 WCDMA models, including handsets from Ericsson Inc, Nokia Corp, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Motorola, Inc and China's ZTE Corp<000063><0763>.

However, Apple's iPhone is still not available in China.

China Unicom earlier said its first-quarter net profit surged 152.6% year on year to hit RMB 3.42 billion.

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