China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited (CMHK) announced here Wednesday that its net profit rose 7.8 percent to 18.828 billion RMB (2.413 billion US dollars) in 2004 interim results.

During the first half of 2004, the company adopted rational strategies to respond to competition in the Chinese mainland telecommunications market, which lead to sustained favorable subscriber growth, said the company.

As of June 30, 2004, the company's mobile subscriber number reached 158.6 million, a net growth of 17.02 million compared to that of the same period last year, it said.

The operating revenue for the first half year reached 86.42 billion RMB (11.08 billion US dollars), up 12.7 percent, it said.

The company's new businesses have also shown an encouraging growth trend, with "Short Message Service", or "SMS", maintaining stable growth, and other new businesses, such as "Color Ring" and WAP, recording impressive growth.

Total revenue from new businesses reached 11.105 billion RMB (1.423 billion US dollars), accounting for 12.9 percent of the total operating revenue of the company as of June 30, 2004.

The company announced an interim dividend payout of 0.2 Hong Kong dollars (2.56 US cents) per share, up 25 percent over the same period for the year 2003.

Source: Xinhua