China Unicom issued a profit warning on July 31, estimating a 80% net profit decline in 1H16.
The company achieved CNY 6.99 billion net profit in 1H15 with a 4.5% YoY increase, so the estimated net profit in 1H16 is about CNY 1.4 billion.
According to China Unicom, increasing network, operating & support cost resulted in the net profit decline, which was caused by YoY growth in sales expense & tower using fees and larger cost in energy sources & rents.
Losing CNY 3.36 billion in the second half of 2015 with the sales proceed of towers excluded, China Unicom showed better business results in 1H16, which also can be indicated by 8.39 million net adds in mobile subscribers with expenditure in 1H16, revising the decline for consecutive months last year.