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Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings (HTHKH) has reported a 26% year-on-year decline in net profit for the first half of the year to HK$376 million ($48.5 million), due to weaker than expected smartphone sales.
Total revenue fell 52% to HK$5.42 billion, with mobile revenue down a significant 62% to HK$3.47 billion.
Hardware revenue shrank from HK$7.15 billion to HK$1.49 billion as a result of a lack of popular smartphones to sell during the period, the company said in its first-half report.
Roaming revenue also declined 19%, or HK$87 million, contributing to a 6% decline in mobile net customer service revenue to HK$1.97 billion.
HTHKH ended June with around 3.1 million customers in Hong Kong and Macau, including about 1.5 million postpaid customers. While the company’s postpaid base stayed largely flat compared to 2H15, churn was reduced to 1.3% from 1.9% over the same period.
Blended local postpaid net ARPU grew 6% year-on-year to HK$168 as the launch of various new infotainment content and data plans resulted in the acquisition of more data centric customers.
Fixed line service revenue for the half-year period meanwhile grew 4% year-on-year to HK$2.07 billion, due largely to an increase in revenue from the international and local carrier market. This was driven by growing data demand from OTT applications and IoT-related devices.
Looking ahead, HTHKH chairman Canning Fok said the company is “planning ahead cautiously in the face of economic uncertainty locally and globally, after developing into a multi-play telecommunications service provider that launches a diversity of products and services to meet changing customer demand.”
