Earnings Call: Q4 2025

Mar 26, 2026

Summary

Revenue rose 0.9% to CNY 1,050.2bn; comparable net profit grew 2%, while reported net profit fell 0.9%. Computing and AI expanded rapidly, and 2026 investment is set to shift toward those networks.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to have you here. Welcome to China Mobile Limited's 2025 annual results presentation. In today's presentation, I will first brief you on our overall results for full year 2025. Then Mr. Li Ronghua will walk you through our financial results. In 2025, as we navigated a complex external environment and a range of pressures and challenges, we delivered solid results across our operation. First, we achieved continued business progress from a stable foundation. Second, we have fully upgraded our operational capabilities. Third, we attained notable results in reform and innovation. Fourth, we delivered increasing returns to shareholders. Fifth, we continued to accelerate our drive to become world-class. We have set out our key performance indicators for the full year of 2025 on this slide for your reference. First, we achieved continued business progress from a stable foundation. In 2025, operating revenue reached CNY 1,050.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%. Operating profit reached CNY 148.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. Net profit reached CNY 137.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2% on a comparable basis. EBITDA margin increased by 0.2 percentage points, reaching 32.3%. Our profitability maintained a leading position among top-tier global telecom operators. Next, I'll walk you through our business development across our three principal businesses, communications, computing, and AI. In 2025, our communication services rested on a solid foundation. Revenue reached CNY 714.9 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 1%. Mobile customers totaled 1.01 billion, broadband customers reached 330 million, and IoT card connections hit 1.48 billion. Satellite communications has commenced commercial operation. Computing services are a key growth driver for our high-quality development, and we saw accelerating rollout in this business line in 2025. Revenue reached CNY 89.8 billion, an increase of 11.1% year-on-year, accounting for 10% of principal business revenue, an increase of 0.9 percentage points. Data center revenue grew by 8.7%, in which AIDC revenue increased by 35.4%. Cloud computing service revenue increased by 13.9%, with intelligent computing service revenue growing by an impressive 279%. Cloud computing applications such as Cloud Drive, Cloud Video, and Cloud PC were widely promoted. The China Mobile Cloud brand has become more prominent. AI services future-proof our business and are a crucial competitive advantage. This business line broke new ground in innovation in 2025. Revenue reached CNY 90.8 billion, an increase of 5.3% year-on-year, accounting for 10.2% of principal business revenue, an increase of 0.5 percentage points. We launched the upgraded Jiutian Foundation large model, over 100 AI+ products and application solutions, 29 industry-specific intelligent agents, and more than 50 industry-specific large models. Revenues from both data algorithms and digital and intelligence culture achieved rapid growth. We continued to seamlessly integrate the two customer groups of the mass and corporate markets, with mobile and broadband business integration rate reaching 96.5%. Member customers within the corporate segment exceeded 200 million, a net increase of 9.35 million. For the mass customer group, we focused on consolidating the existing customer base, stimulating usage, and increasing value. The numbers of GoTone and gigabit broadband customers reached 200 million and 110 million respectively. Revenue from the mass customer group was CNY 655.1 billion. For the government and enterprise customer group, we focused on enhancing capabilities, expanding scale, and improving quality and efficiency. The number of government and enterprise customers recorded a net increase of 3.58 million. Revenue from government and enterprise customers reached CNY 240.4 billion. We continued to strengthen the integrated development of domestic and international markets, driving rapid international expansion. We served hundreds of millions of mobile customers as they roam worldwide and supported Chinese enterprises in expanding their global presence. We also successfully acquired Hong Kong Broadband Network. In 2025, international market revenue reached CNY 29.3 billion, up by 28.5% year-on-year. The company has built a comprehensive service system and implemented 10 service commitments, further elevating our service standards. The China Mobile app had 346 million monthly active users, up by 50% year-on-year. 5G network dwell time ratio increased to 97.6%. We have refreshed our GoTone and China Mobile Aijia customer brands and crafted our own commercial customer brand, China Mobile Zhiqi. Our brand value occupied a top rank among global telecom operators. Second, we have fully upgraded our operational capabilities. In 2025, CapEx totaled CNY 150.9 billion, down by 8% year-on-year. We continued to optimize our investment structure and strengthen our infrastructure. The total number of our 5G network base stations exceeded 2.77 million. We were the first in the world to introduce an intelligent 5G core network. Our gigabit network covered 530 million families and enterprises, and we have maintained industry leadership in communications network. Total intelligent computing capacity reached 92.5 EFLOPS. Our inter-provincial backbone 400G OTN network has basically achieved nationwide coverage, and we provided external IDC services through more than 1.5 million standard racks. We have accelerated planning of computing network. We also created the MoMA service engine and accelerated IoD upgrade. At the same time, we have made progress in the converged applications of 5G+ industrial internet. With these efforts, we continued to advance AI network convergence and innovation at pace. We relentlessly pursued product innovation, significantly enhancing our offerings. In communication services, we focused on mobile communications, broadband networks, cellular IoT, and satellite internet, driving business model innovation. In computing services, we centered our efforts on data centers, cloud computing services, and cloud computing applications, seizing new opportunities arising from surging demand. In AI services, we focused on data algorithms, embodied intelligence, digital intelligence culture, digital intelligence e-commerce, and industry digital intelligence services, deeply integrating digital intelligence into everyday life, production, and governance. We successfully introduced 13 products generating revenue at 10 billion yuan level and 17 products serving over 100 million customers. At the same time, our Lingxi Intelligent Agent attracted more than 100 million monthly active customers. Third, we attained notable results in reform and innovation. We continued to increase investment in innovation, continuously strengthening our technological capabilities. Our 5G core technology patents received the China Patent Gold Award. The number of 6G international standard-setting projects we initiated placed us in the first tier among global operators. We launched Computing Network Brain 3.0, establishing eight national-level, hub-level, and regional-level platforms. Our Jiutian large model topped the OpenCompass leaderboard. Our Jiutian large model was on the list of the 2025 global industrial large model top 50. The total scale of our quantum computing cloud platform surpassed 2,000 qubits. We saw accelerated expansion in emerging fields. We achieved notable results in reform management. We generated vitality through reforms. We set up an office for developing computing services, coordinating network deployment, and major project delivery. We have also founded Jiutian AI Research Institute, consolidating our capabilities in information technology, data technology, and AI technology. We attracted talent with incentives. The composition of our talent pool is now better aligned with our needs of developing new quality productive forces, and the company was recognized among China's top 10 best employers 2025. We leveraged digital intelligence to promote transformation. Our middle platform has responded to more than 1.4 trillion deployment requests, and we had over 80,000 active digital intelligence employees. We strengthened lean and quality management, comprehensively enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, and performance of the full process of business management. Growth in operating expenses was lower than growth in operating revenue. We actively fulfilled our corporate ESG responsibilities, advanced green development, practically and effectively undertook our social responsibilities, achieving notable progress in corporate governance. For the third consecutive year, the company received the highest five-star excellence rating in the China ESG Listed Companies Pioneer 100 list and was also recognized as an ESG model demonstration base, garnering widespread acclaim for its ESG performance. The board of directors recommends a final dividend payment of HK$2.52 per share for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Together with the interim dividend already paid, total dividend for the full year of 2025 amounted to HK$5.27 per share, an increase of 3.5% year-on-year. Dividend payout ratio for the full year of 2025 was 75%. To create higher returns for our shareholders and share the results of our growth, the company, after giving full consideration to our profitability, cash flow position and future development needs, expects the dividend payout ratio for the full year of 2026 to be stable to rising. Looking ahead, the company will stay committed to its vision of becoming a world-class sci-tech service enterprise, focusing on its three principal businesses of communication services, computing services, and AI services, while adhering to the principle of strengthening the network foundation and driving full stack innovation. By 2030, the company aims to basically establish itself as a world-class sci-tech service enterprise, and by 2035, to have fully established this status, becoming a world-leading communications, computing and AI service operator. 2026 marks the beginning of the 15th five-year plan. We will focus on improving quality and efficiency to enhance our core competitiveness. We will revitalize our communication services, accelerate computing services, and upgrade AI services while further strengthening our network foundation, deepening digital intelligence empowerment, and reinforcing our brand strength. On the other hand, we will advance technological innovation and develop new quality productive forces, investing better in networks, faster in innovation, and stronger in people. This slide outlines the company's main operating targets for 2026. Facing numerous uncertainties, we will remain confident in our development, making all-out efforts to forge new horizons, striving to achieve stable and healthy revenue growth, and coordinated profit growth on a comparable basis. Specifically, CapEx for communications network is expected to decrease, while communication service revenue is expected to deliver stable and healthy growth. CapEx for computing network and AI network is expected to increase significantly, with revenues from these two businesses achieving rapid growth. This concludes my presentation. Next, Mr. Li Ronghua will elaborate on our financial performance. Thank you, Mr. Chen. I will now present the company's financial performance for 2025. In 2025, the company's overall financial performance remained stable. Operating revenue reached CNY 1,050.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%. In particular, principal business revenue was CNY 895.5 billion, up 0.7% year-on-year. Other business revenue, including mobile terminal sales, reached CNY 154.7 billion, up 2.2% year-on-year. The company's lean management initiatives yielded good results, with operating expenses increasing by 0.3% year-on-year. Due to the tax impact of revenue disaggregation basis being applied to service packages, other gains decreased by 108.6% year-on-year. Affected by market interest rates, interest and other income decreased by 20.4% year-on-year. Benefiting from improved profitability of investee companies, income from investments accounted for using the equity method increased by 12.2% year-on-year. As a result, the company achieved a net profit of CNY 137.1 billion, a decrease of 0.9% year-on-year. On a comparable basis, net profit grew by 2% year-on-year. Looking at the revenue structure by business segment as presented in the financial statements, growth in traditional communication services such as voice, SMS and MMS has slowed down, while the percentage of revenue from wireline broadband and applications and information services, as well as contribution from computing services and AI services, continued to rise, showing steady progress in transition of growth drivers. The company focused on strengthening cost control, resulting in full year cost growth being 0.6 percentage points lower than revenue growth. While ensuring investments in transformation, the company strictly controlled outsourcing expenditures and enhanced the use of in-house resources. Network operation and support expenses were CNY 285.7 billion, up 0.8%. Capital expenditure remained stable with a slight decline. Depreciation and amortization amounted to CNY 190 billion, a decrease of 0.6%. We continued to increase incentives for key backbone personnel and frontline staff. Employee benefit and related expenses were CNY 154.1 billion, up 1.4%. As the company increased investment in marketing resources such as existing operations and customer service, selling expenses increased by 3% to CNY 56.2 billion. We strengthened the classification and management of accounts receivable, enhanced the in-house development of R&D capabilities, and strictly controlled administrative costs, leading to an 8.4% decrease in other operating expenses to CNY 62.3 billion. The company continued to maintain leading profitability. Operating profit was CNY 148.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. EBITDA reached CNY 338.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.6%. The EBITDA margin was 32.3%, up 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. The value contribution from the company's equity investments continued to improve. In 2025, income from investments accounted for using the equity method reached CNY 12.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.2%. With effective capital operation, we successfully acquired HKBN and continuous strengthened our presence in relevant sectors, including data centers, quantum technology, and low-altitude economy. The company maintained healthy and sufficient cash flow. Net cash generated from operating activities was CNY 232.9 billion, and free cash flow was CNY 82 billion, both recorded a year-on-year decrease, but showed significant improvement in the second half compared to the first half of the year. For 2026, the company is confident in achieving rapid growth in free cash flow. Our capital structure maintained stable and healthy with corporate credit ratings equivalent to China's sovereign ratings. In 2026, the company will adhere to the principle of pursuing progress while maintaining stability. We will further strengthen precision and efficient management, enhance quality and efficiency, and reinforce risk prevention and control to ensure the high quality and sustainable development of the company. This is the end of our presentation and analysis on our 2025 annual results. Thank you.