Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the company's management, I would like to welcome all of you to our 2023 interim results presentation. This presentation will be conducted in Mandarin with simultaneous interpretation. The Q&A section afterwards will be hosted by moderator and provided with consecutive interpretation. Please be reminded to switch off your mobile phone or set it to silent mode during the presentation. First, may I introduce our management attending today. Mr. Ke Ruiwen, Executive Director, Chairman, and CEO. Mr. Shao Guanglu, Executive Director, President, and COO. Mr. Tang Ke, Executive Director and Executive Vice President. Mr. Li Yinghui, Executive Director, Executive Vice President, CFO, and Secretary of the Board. Thank you for joining us, and hope you will find this presentation helpful. Now, please welcome Chairman Ke to give us an overview of the company's 2023 interim results.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to our 2023 interim results presentation, and thank you for your long-term care and support. This presentation has two sections. I'll provide an overview first. Then Mr. Shao Guanglu will go through the business review and financial performance. In the first half of 2023, the company had the following six development highlights. One, implement cloudification and digital transformation fully and deeply to achieve steady growth in operating results. Two, insist on the leading role of sci-tech innovation to elevate corporate core competitiveness. Three, China Telecom Cloud maintained rapid growth, and AI continued to strengthen in capability of intelligence empowerment. Four, precision investment with structure optimized and solidify digital information structure. Five, digital transformation as the steadfast mainline to enhance quality and efficiency and facilitate value creation. Six, deepen reform and open for cooperation and accelerate the building of world-class enterprise.
In the first half of the year, the company firmly and fully implemented the cloudification and digital transformation strategy. With a customer-oriented approach, the company actively expanded the input from monetization services for individuals, families, government, and enterprises and achieved steady growth in operating results. This table shows the key financial data in the first half, among which revenue, EBITDA, and net profit achieved favorable growth. The company's operations achieved new results in the first half. Service revenues increased by 6.6% YoY, higher than industry growth, and maintained growth for 10 consecutive years. The revenue and contribution of industrial digitalization continued to increase to nearly 30%. Net profit maintained double-digit growth by 10.2% YoY, and net profit margin increased by 0.2 percentage points. Sci-tech innovation continued to make breakthroughs.
As China Telecom Cloud, the source of original technologies, achieved multi-chip architecture in one cloud with full-stack proprietary technologies, while R&D in AI and quantum also delivered meaningful results. Corporate reform continued deepening, and the company was awarded Grade A in the key missions assessment of the three-year action for reform of central enterprises in 2022. The company formed the cycle of technology, product, and industry and accelerated achievement conversion to forge new momentum and new advantages for development. The company stepped up R&D input by increasing R&D expenses by 27% YoY and number of R&D personnel by 21% versus end 2022. Accelerated the layout of strategic emerging businesses and achieved breakthroughs in key areas such as cloud, network, big data, AI, security, and quantum. Strengthened the research on key core technologies and accelerated the transfer of innovation achievements.
The proportion of proprietary IT systems and business platforms was nearly 40%, while number of items in proprietary achievements list grew by 124%. In the first half, the revenue of China Telecom Cloud reached CNY 45.9 billion, maintaining high-speed growth of 63.4% YoY, and we strive to achieve the full-year goal of CNY 100 billion. China Telecom Cloud possesses competitive advantages shaping the national cloud framework, such as proprietary full-stack technologies, industry-leading computing power layout, diverse and high-quality product capabilities, secure and reliable operation capabilities, and open and collaborative national cloud ecosystem.
China Telecom Cloud maintained leading market position for ranking number one in government public cloud infrastructure, number three in PRC's public cloud IaaS and public cloud PaaS markets, number one in PRC's Desktop as a Service, and the world's largest telecom cloud. China Telecom Cloud accounted for 60% in the first batch of 40 industrial public cloud projects of SASAC.
The company seized opportunities from AI and continued to deepen AI layout according by taking the Xingchen platform as the core and leveraging the advantages of cloud network integration. The generative large language model TeleChat was launched, while the Xingchen visual foundation model was upgraded to version 2.0, and an algorithm warehouse, an ecosystem with 5,500 scenario-based algorithms, was built. Some of these algorithms are Industry leading. All these satisfy the company's need of accelerating internal digital transformation and injecting intelligence into digital life, while at the same time empowering numerous application scenarios in thousands of industries. In the first half, the company's CapEx was CNY 41.6 billion and structure was further optimized by further increasing proportion on industrial digitalization to 28%, up by 4.1% year-on-year, effectively strengthening the momentum of industrial digitalization.
The company focuses on the construction of intelligent and integrated digital information infrastructure, featuring high speed and ubiquitous aerial ground in one cloud network integrated intelligent and agile, green and low carbon, secure and controllable. In the first half, intelligent computing power increased by 62%, while general computing power increased by 19%. Number of IDC cabinet serving external customers reached 534,000. Network architecture continued to optimize centering around data centers and cloud by building an east-west, north-south low latency network for enhancing the capabilities of cloud network integrated green and low-carbon computing power infrastructure. Gigabit fiber network continued to expand coverage. 5G and satellite networks were strengthened for building a high speed and ubiquitous aerial ground in one network. The company and China Unicom continued to promote 5G co-building and co-sharing.
In the first half, the number of 5G base stations amounted to over 1.15 million, and the 4G mid-spectrum networks were comprehensively co-shared with 4G base stations amounted to over 2 million. The company fully leveraged AI, big data and other technologies and data to drive internal digital transformation and took multiple measures to promote cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and to maintain double-digit growth in net profit. In particular, the proportion of selling expense to revenue, the proportion of low sales source, the electricity cost per 4G/5G base station, and the unit carbon emission decreased year-on-year, which promoted cost saving, environmental protection, and energy conservation. The proportion of intelligent customer service revenue, tower sharing ratio, overall FTTH port utilization ratio, and wireline terminal recovery rate increased year-on-year, contributing to the enhancement of operating quality and efficiency.
I would like to thank all shareholders, investors and analysts for your support and attention to the development of the company. The company will continue to work hand-in-hand with you and share the development results. The board proposed a dividend of CNY 0.1432 per share for the first half of 2023, implying 65% of the profit attributable to shareholders of the company. Adhering to the commitment during A-share offering, the company will propose at general meeting to increase the profit to be distributed in cash for 2023 to above 70% of the profit attributable to shareholders of the company for the year. The company will continue to comprehensively deepen corporate reform, including accelerating reform of sci-tech innovation mechanism, fully promoting the restructuring of organizational process, stepping up market-oriented reform, and strengthening ecological integration and innovation to further unleash new momentum for corporate development.
The company will follow the 2522 overall framework of Digital China, seize opportunities of digital economy, firmly, fully and deeply implement the cloudification and digital transformation strategy, accelerate the development of a service-oriented, technology-oriented and secured enterprise from technology, accelerate establishing world-class enterprise and share development results with shareholders, customers and society. I will now pass the floor to Mr. Shao Guanglu to walk you through the business and financial performance of the company.
Thank you, Chairman Ke. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will now go through our business and financial performance in the first half. In the first half, the company's business performance continued to do well. This table sets forth the revenue and key financial indicators of various businesses. I will go into details about the business and financials.
In the first half, all major businesses of the company achieved good growth, of which industrial digitalization maintained rapid growth, with revenue increased by 16.7% and continued to be the main driver of revenue growth by contributing CNY 9.87 billion to incremental revenue. Mobile communications service and wireline and smart family contributed CNY 2.65 billion and CNY 2.15 billion of incremental revenues respectively.
In the first half, mobile communications service, wireline and smart family businesses developed steadily with revenue growing by 2.7% and 3.6% respectively. Mobile and broadband user structures continued to optimize as the penetration of 5G package users increased to 73.4%, while that of gigabit broadband users increased to 20.3%, both maintaining industry leadership position. User value of fundamental businesses increased for three consecutive years as mobile ARPU increased to CNY 46.2 and broadband ARPU increased to CNY 48.2. The company achieved remarkable results in integrated development with increasing revenue and value contribution.
Mobile value-added and applications revenue grew by 19.4% YoY, further accelerating from 17% in 2022. Smart family revenue increased by 15.7% YoY. Mobile value-add and applications contributed CNY 6.5 to mobile ARPU, up 14% YoY, while Smart Family contributed CNY 8.5 to broadband ARPU, up 9% YoY. Standard digital products and diverse scenario-basing solutions extended from individuals and families to communities and villages, saw robust momentum with rapid growth in scale. The strong market demand for these innovatively integrated fundamental services formed a robust driving force for the long-term growth of the company's fundamental businesses. In the first half, the company's cloud AI and cybersecurity businesses developed well. China Telecom Cloud achieved remarkable results in market expansion, winning 22,000 projects with a contract amount of CNY 26.4 billion, while the number of industrial customers increased by 17.4% to over 3.5 million.
The company's competitive advantages in the government and enterprise market continued to consolidate as its number of government customers exceeded 600,000 with a revenue contribution of 27.8%. The company actively explored cloud demand in government, industrial, culture and tourism, finance, and other sectors, continued to build benchmark projects, and accelerated replication and promotion, driving the rapid growth and enhancing market position of China Telecom Cloud. The company's AI business developed rapidly with competitiveness enhanced on independent R&D capabilities, AI large models, talent teams, and industrial system. The company created end-to-end integrated AI services on internal quality and efficiency enhancement programs, such as empowering digital customer service and base station energy saving, and external provision of AI products and services such as in Internet of Video Things, IoVT, and communication assistant to the market.
Based on TeleChat and Xingchen visual foundation model, the company empowered the applications for various industries, supported more than 500 industrial digitalization projects, and helped accelerate the digital transformation of the economy and society. For cybersecurity, the company provided integrated products and services covering cloud, network, edge, and terminal. In the first half, the revenue of the benchmark product, CloudM, amounted to approximately CNY 1.2 billion, up 38.8% YoY. In the first half, the company's digital platform business developed rapidly, with 110 industry-leading digital platforms independently developed and continue to empower vertical sectors such as municipal, rural, healthcare, finance, and campus. The company step up construction of fundamental capacities, and capabilities of fundamental capacity platform were used 1.1 billion times, up 31% YoY. The company's IoT revenue increased by 75.7% year-over-year, further accelerating from 40.2% in 2022.
IoVT expanded rapidly as the number of users increased by 11 million to over 57 million, equipped by 76 open capabilities in 10 categories and connecting with over 30 industrial platforms in security, emergency, and other industries. Smart communities and digital villages flourished with a net of 14,000 communities and 38,000 villages servicing, respectively, while relevant replications were continually enriched to meet the needs of residents' livelihood and governance. Leveraging integration and innovation, the company continued to strengthen and expand 5G-to-B services by deep empowerment of digital application use cases with AI, Big Data, Cloud, ICT, and other elements, with an aim to provide us customers with better and more comprehensive solutions, and to continuously create high-value and replicable benchmark projects.
The company's 5G-to-B business has accelerated after incorporating these new elements, covering more than 100 key industrial use cases and has accumulated more than 1,000 benchmark projects. In the first half, the number of 5G industrial application projects increased by approximately 6,000, reaching a total of 20,500. The contracted amount of 5G applications increased by 92% YoY, and the accumulated contracted amount exceeded CNY 21 billion, reflecting the strong demand for China Telecom's 5G plus ABC plus ICT innovative integrated services. In the first half, the company maintained precise investment to enhance corporate competitiveness and support high-quality development. Operating expenses increased by 7.3% YoY, with growth rate decreasing for three consecutive years. To seize development opportunities of the digital economy, input was moderately increased on high-growth areas such as industrial digitalization and smart family.
The company continued to allocate resources to personnel with strengthened introduction of sci-tech and innovative-type talents, and appropriately increase of incentives of high-performance teams, while control over network operating costs and SG&A expenses was enhanced. The company's financial strength continued to enhance with EBITDA increasing by 5.5% YoY to RMB 73.3 billion. Total debt increased by 26.1%, gearing ratio remains stable at 46.5%, and corporate credit rating remained the highest AAA. The company will continue to promote high-quality development by strengthening sci-tech innovation to become stronger, better, and bigger, adhering to customer-oriented principle to continuously enhance operating level, accelerating the upgrade of digital information infrastructure, and continuously strengthening cloud network operating and servicing capabilities, as well as accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries and building core competitiveness for the future. Our presentation ends here. Thank you.