Besides a strong hold on the consumer market, China Telecom is capturing new growth in the enterprise market. Specifically, it is providing industrial digitisation services, such as internet data centres and cloud computing. Its internet data centre business, for example, is the largest in China, notes Baker. In addition, the company has an extensive overseas presence in 41 countries and regions, running 47 submarine cables and other related communications infrastructure.
China Telecom is the country’s largest fixedline operator, and also the second-largest mobile operator after China Mobile. China Telecom’s mobile user base has surged 13 times since 2008 to reach around 400 million.
Besides 104 million fixed-line users, it has 184 million broadband subscribers too, giving it a bigger, multiproduct platform and addressable market to cross-sell its products and services. “This growth has enabled the business to become more profitable as the network’s fixed costs are spread over a much larger customer base,” says Morningstar analyst Dan Baker, who likes the company for having made the most of favourable structural changes in the industry.
