China Unicom’s revenue and profit grew steadily, focusing on networking communication and calculating network intelligence

　　On the 19th, a performance conference was held in Hong Kong. In 2023, the company realized an operating income of 372.6 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), up 5% year-on-year, and the profit attributable to shareholders of the company reached 18.7 billion yuan, up 11.8% year-on-year.

　　Chen Zhongyue, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said that the company firmly fulfilled its two main responsibilities of being a network powerhouse and a digital China, focusing on two main businesses: networking communication and computing the network and being intelligent. With the increasingly perfect coverage of 5G network, the company’s investment focus has shifted from the stable networking communication business to the high-growth network computing and intelligence business. In 2023, the capital expenditure decreased year-on-year, and the network investment has already turned to an inflection point.

　　Give consideration to scale increaseValue enhancement, many businesses have developed well.

　　Chen Zhongyue said that in 2023, the strategic system will continue to deepen, and the current operation and long-term development will be actively coordinated, focusing on the two main businesses of networked communication and network computing and intelligence, so as to achieve effective improvement in quality and reasonable growth in quantity.

　　Performance data shows that,In addition to both business and profit growth, the return on net assets reached 5.4%, achieving the best level in recent years; The annual dividend was 0.3366 yuan per share, up 22.8% year-on-year, significantly higher than the basic earnings per share of 11.8%.

　　The revenue of networked communication business reached 244.6 billion yuan, including mobile networking, broadband networking, TV networking, private line networking, communication business and information business, and the revenue scale reached three quarters of the total revenue of the main business. The scale of networked communication users exceeded 1 billion, and the scale of mobile users reached 333 million, including a net increase of 10.6 million in 2023, and the penetration rate of 5G package users reached 78%, up 12% year-on-year.

　　The revenue from the network intelligence business is RMB 75.2 billion, including Unicom Cloud,, the integration of several disciplines, data services, digital intelligence applications and network security, the revenue scale accounts for about a quarter of the total revenue of the main business, and brings more than half of the new service revenue to the company. Unicom Cloud realized revenue of RMB 51 billion, up 41.6% year-on-year.

　　In accelerating the construction of digital information infrastructure, the coverage level of mobile networks has been continuously improved, with more than 1.21 million 5G IF base stations and 680,000 900M base stations. In response to the "double carbon" policy, in 2023, it will save about 39 billion yuan in operating expenses, reduce carbon emissions by about 11.5 million tons, and save about 340 billion yuan in capital expenditure.

　　Focusing on the main business, innovating and developing the industry is still in a good development period.

　　At the press conference, China Unicom made it clear for the first time that networking communication and computing network intelligence are the two main businesses of the company.

　　Chen Zhongyue said that taking these two items as the main business has fully considered the development reality of the company and the development trend of the industry. They are complementary and mutually conditional. Digital business is an important engine for the development of networked business, and networked business is an important foundation for the development of digital business. Both are basic businesses, and both need innovation and development.

　　Facing the wave of digitalization, intelligence and greening, China Unicom expressed its active embrace.To speed up the construction of new quality productive forces, we should start from three aspects: First, we should lay out strategic priorities, formulate an overall development plan, and systematically lay out intelligent computing services, research and development of large models, high-quality data sets, security and applications. The company has also set up an innovation center to gather high-level talents and strive to build artificial intelligence into an important engine for the company’s high-quality development.

　　The second is the key capacity building, which is mainly reflected in computing services and large models. In terms of providing specialized computing infrastructure services, a "1+N+X" computing capacity system has been laid out, including a single ultra-large-scale computing center, n computing hubs for training and reasoning, and x data-based computing and reasoning nodes.

　　The third is the key exploration of application, focusing on the big model of the industry. At present, phased results have been achieved in the internal scenes of online customer service, as well as industry-oriented government affairs, industry, clothing and other fields.

　　Speaking of capital expenditure, Chen Zhongyue said that in the first five years since entering the 5G construction cycle, the annual capital expenditure has continued to grow, but it has declined in 2023, reflecting that the network investment has turned to an inflection point. It is estimated that the capital expenditure in 2024 will be reduced by 12% on the basis of 73.9 billion yuan last year.

　　For the future development, Chen Zhongyue believes that the communication industry is still in a good development period, and China Unicom will help enterprises to step up through a series of strategies to strengthen enterprises, including strengthening enterprises through science and technology, talents, reform, intelligence and brand.