HONG KONG: China Unicom Hong Kong said here the other day that first-quarter net income fell more than 4 percent from a year earlier as the country’s recently enforced value-added tax exacerbated the telecom carrier’s declining business.
China’s second-largest telecom carrier posted a net income of 3.16 billion yuan (HK$3.95 billion) in the first quarter ended March, beating market’s estimate.
Revenue fell 3 percent to 74.3 billion yuan as income from telecom services fell 5.6 percent.
Shares of the company closed flat at HK$14.48.
Like China’s other two national carriers, Unicom has suffered due to a new value-added tax that replaced a flat 3 percent business tax, as part of Beijing’s effort to reform the state- owned telecom industry.
But Unicom has been particularly struggling to retain users, with its total number of subscribers falling in March for the second month in a row to 295 million, the lowest in nearly 12 months.
