In the first half of 2025, China's three major telecom operators delivered performance reports demonstrating the success of their transformation. China Mobile achieved operating revenue of 543.77 billion yuan and a net profit of 84.2 billion yuan, continuing to lead the industry. China Telecom's revenue reached 271.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%, with a net profit of 23 billion yuan. China Unicom's revenue exceeded 200 billion yuan, reaching 200.2 billion yuan, with a net profit of 14.48 billion yuan. Notably, the net profit growth rate (5%-5.5%) of all three operators exceeded the revenue growth rate, reflecting the continued improvement in operating quality.
In traditional business segments, operators generally faced growth pressure. China Mobile's personal market revenue was 244.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.1%. Its total mobile user base has reached 1.005 billion, and its 5G penetration rate is close to 60%, indicating near-saturation of the market. China Telecom's mobile communication service revenue was 106.6 billion yuan. Although it maintained a 1.3% growth rate, the growth rate has slowed significantly. China Unicom's voice call revenue was 9.84 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.6%. However, the home market became a bright spot within traditional businesses. China Mobile's home market revenue grew 7.4% to 74.99 billion yuan, of which smart home business revenue reached 18.5 billion yuan. China Telecom's fixed-line and smart home revenue reached 64.1 billion yuan, with smart home service revenue increasing by 9.1%.
Digital transformation businesses are becoming a new growth engine. China Mobile's government and enterprise market revenue reached 118.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.6%, increasing its share of communications service revenue to 25.3%. China Telecom's industrial digitalization revenue reached 74.9 billion yuan, accounting for 30% of communications service revenue. China Unicom's computing network and digital intelligence business revenue reached 45.4 billion yuan, increasing its share to 26%. Even more striking was the explosive growth of strategic emerging businesses: China Telecom's quantum computing revenue surged 171.1% year-on-year, and its visual networking revenue grew 46.2%. China Mobile's direct AI revenue achieved rapid growth. China Unicom's strategic emerging industry revenue now accounts for 86%.
Cloud business development has entered a period of deep adjustment. China Mobile's mobile cloud revenue reached 56.1 billion yuan, an 11.3% year-on-year increase, a decrease of 8 percentage points compared to the same period last year. China Telecom's Tianyi Cloud revenue reached 57.3 billion yuan, a 3.8% increase. China Unicom's Unicom Cloud revenue reached 37.6 billion yuan, a 4.6% increase. This change reflects both a changing market environment and proactive strategic adjustments by operators. China Mobile Chairman Yang Jie explicitly stated that the company is actively abandoning inefficient businesses in pursuit of profitable revenue growth. Meanwhile, operators' cloud businesses are developing in a differentiated manner: China Telecom is building an intelligent cloud system encompassing "computing power + platform + data + model + application"; China Mobile is focusing on cutting-edge areas such as embodied intelligence and vehicle-road-cloud integration; and China Unicom is strengthening its integrated computing, intelligence, cloud, and network capabilities.
In the field of artificial intelligence, all three major operators have achieved significant breakthroughs. In terms of computing infrastructure development, China Telecom's own and accessed intelligent computing capacity reaches 77 EFLOPS, with intelligent computing clusters deployed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. China Mobile's total intelligent computing capacity reaches 61.3 EFLOPS, with a 400G OTN interprovincial backbone network built. China Unicom's intelligent computing capacity reaches 30 EFLOPS, with the ability to manage 10,000-card clusters. Significant progress has been made in the development of large models. China Telecom has launched the Xingchen large model and over 80 industry models. China Mobile has upgraded its "Jiutian" large model matrix, deploying over 50 industry large models. China Unicom has developed its own Yuanjing large model, encompassing over 30 multimodal models. With the rapid implementation of commercial applications, China Telecom's intelligent revenue increased by 89.4% to 6.3 billion yuan, serving 20,000 industry customers. China Mobile has signed 1,485 AI+DICT projects, and China Unicom has built hundreds of AI entities.
Looking ahead, operators face both challenges and opportunities. Urgent challenges include downward pressure on traditional businesses, fierce competition in cloud services, and balancing the returns of AI investment. At the same time, the national "Eastern Data, Western Computing" initiative continues to advance, demand for digital transformation in the industry is strong, and international business continues to grow strongly (China Mobile saw an 18.4% increase, China Telecom's international business revenue grew 18%, and China Unicom saw an 11% increase). These developments are creating new opportunities for operators. China Mobile is accelerating its "AI+" action plan; China Telecom Chairman Ke Ruiwen stated that Tianyi Cloud has passed the inflection point in intelligent cloud development; and China Unicom is striving to become a digital service provider with a deeper understanding of the industry.
Overall, the performance reports of the three major operators for the first half of 2025 clearly illustrate the trajectory of industry transformation: traditional businesses are under pressure but maintain their fundamentals, digital businesses are growing rapidly and becoming a new pillar, and AI innovation is fostering future development momentum. In the digital economy era, operators are completing their transformation from communications service providers to intelligent integrated service providers. While this transformation faces challenges, the prospects are promising. With continued breakthroughs in technological innovation and the continuous improvement of their business models, the three major operators are expected to achieve higher-quality development amidst the wave of digitalization.