UPDATE: China Mobile First-quarter Profit Surges 22%

HONG KONG (Dow Jones) -- China Mobile, the mainland's largest wireless operator, reported Friday a 22% rise in the first-quarter net profit.

China Mobile said net profit for the three-month period was 17.56 billion yuan ($2.28 billion), up from 14.36 billion yuan in the year-earlier period.

China Mobile's first-quarter revenue rose to 77.71 billion yuan from 65.02 billion yuan in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts' average forecasts were for net profit of 17.89 billion yuan, according to a poll by Dow Jones Newswires.

The company said it added 14.89 million net new subscribers in the quarter, a quickening in the pace of subscriber sign-ups after 14.08 million were added in the final three months of 2006.

China Mobile said its total subscriber base rose to 316.12 million as of March 31.

There were 467 million cellular subscribers in China as of the end of January, according to reports. Shares of China Mobile gained 3.3% in Hong Kong trading Friday.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 20th April 2007