China Mobile profit rises 3.5% in H1

BEIJING — China Mobile, China's leading telecom services provider, Thursday reported high profit growth in the first half of this year.

Profit attributable to equity shareholders rose 3.5 percent year-on-year to 62.7 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) in the first half, according to a company statement.

The growth was higher than a 0.2 percent increase in profit last year.

Operating revenue in the first half reached 388.9 billion yuan, up 5 percent year-on-year, the company said.

Revenue from telecom services climbed 6.9 percent from a year earlier, with the growth rate higher than the industrial average.

Revenue from wireless data traffic reached 187.7 billion yuan, accounting for more than half of the telecom services revenue, according to the company.