China Mobile Reports First Revenue Decline

China Mobile reported revenues of 156.55 billion Chinese yuan (25.58 billion US dollars) for the third quarter of 2014, a year-on-year decline of 2%. That probably represents the first revenue fall in the history of the company.

The leading Chinese telco reported that its customers sent 149.5 billion SMS messages in the quarter down from 188.6 billion the previous year. Moreover, the volume of voice calls (measured in minutes) fell slightly. In a statement, the company noted: "In the first three quarters of 2014, the mobile communications sector in Mainland China was already in the phase of high penetration rate, and the room for development in traditional communications business was severely restricted. At the same time, the impact of the competition from mobile Internet became more evident."

China Mobile also reported that it now has almost 41 million 4G customers on its network, up from less than 3 million at the end of March. source: China Mobile operating data