On March 11, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) (0762. HK) disclosed the results of 2021. Last year, the company achieved a revenue of 327.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%; Among them, the service revenue was 296.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%, an increase of 3.1 percentage points over the whole year of 2020. The net profit was 14.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.0%, an increase of 4.7 percentage points over the whole year of 2020.
In 2021, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) capital expenditure was 69 billion yuan, lower than the annual guideline of 70 billion yuan, and the investment efficiency was further improved; The annual free cash flow continued to be abundant, reaching 41.7 billion yuan, and the financial strength was further consolidated. Maiyanzhou, senior vice president of the company, revealed at the telephone conference that capital expenditure will be moderately increased in 2022 to ensure that the growth of capital expenditure matches the growth of income.
Last year, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) paid an interim dividend of 0.12 yuan per share for the first time. The board of directors of the company proposed to pay an annual final dividend of 0.096 yuan per share, with a total annual dividend of 0.216 yuan per share, an increase of 31.7% year-on-year, and a total dividend of 6.61 billion yuan China United Network Communications Limited(600050) said it would continue to strive to improve profitability and shareholder returns in the future.
mobile and fixed network services both grow
By business, in 2021, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) of mobile service revenue reached 164.1 billion yuan, an increase of 4.8% year-on-year. The net increase of mobile billing users was 11.3 million, significantly better than the net decrease of 12.66 million in 2020; By the end of last year, 5g package users had reached 155 million, with an annual cumulative net increase of 84.1 million. 5g package user penetration exceeded the industry average, reaching 48.9%.
Over the same period, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) fixed line broadband access revenue reached 44.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%. The annual net increase of fixed line broadband users was 8.95 million, reaching a total of 95.05 million. The annual net increase of users reached a record high of the company; Broadband access ARPU remained stable, reaching 41.3 yuan.
Last year, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) of the industrial Internet business revenue increased by 28.2% year-on-year to 54.8 billion yuan, accounting for 18.5% of the overall service revenue. Industrial Internet is the focus of business transformation of operators in recent years. China United Network Communications Limited(600050) divides this business into cloud computing, big data, Internet of things and it services.
Network construction shows that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) continues to cooperate with China Telecom Corporation Limited(601728) in 2021, opening 310000 new 5g base stations. The two sides have opened 6900005g base stations in total, building the world’s largest 5g co construction and sharing network. The number of 4G base stations reached 1.56 million, the 4G population coverage reached 95%, and the scale of 4G sharing further broke through. Both sides shared 6 Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Company Limited(600004) G base stations. Through the joint construction and sharing of 4G / 5G network, the investment saved for both sides has exceeded 210 billion yuan.
For the future network construction and capital expenditure plan, maiyanzhou said at the performance telephone conference that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) plans to complete the scale construction of 5g network in about three years, and the overall capital expenditure will remain stable in the next few years; As for 2022, capital expenditure will be moderately increased to keep the growth of capital expenditure matched with the growth of income, and the proportion of capital expenditure to income will be stable.
Maiyanzhou said that this is mainly due to the fact that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) is speeding up the building of “four boutique networks”, building the core competitiveness of innovative products moderately in advance, network industry coordination, precision investment and consolidating the cornerstone of the company’s high-quality development. Among them, the increased investment in transmission network and infrastructure mainly meets the capacity layout of data center, and moderately increases the investment in East digital West computing network; The increased investment in broadband and data is mainly used to speed up the deployment of broadband gigabit network and the construction of government enterprise boutique network. At the same time, adhere to co construction and sharing and improve investment efficiency.
“speed up and fee reduction” to “speed up and quality improvement”
As mentioned above, industrial Internet business is one of the keys to the current transformation of operators Liu Liehong, chairman of China United Network Communications Limited(600050) company, stressed at the performance teleconference that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) should firmly advance into the main channel of digital economy, comprehensively upgrade the company’s new strategy, new positioning and new track for digital economy, and reiterated the five main responsibilities of big connection, big computing, big data, big application and big security.
The reporter noted that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) has also paid a lot of attention to the industrial Internet in its annual performance. It is mentioned that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) should seize the new opportunity of “counting from the east to the west”, create an integrated computing and network service of “connection + perception + computing + intelligence”, and build a new “5 + 4 + 31 + X” data center system with cloud network edge integration, reasonable distribution and intensive green color.
Maiyanzhou said that China United Network Communications Limited(600050) has more than 800 data centers, with a total scale of more than 300000. The next step will be to optimize the “5 + 4 + 31 + X” resource layout, accelerate the construction of the “4” National East number hub node data center, and realize large-scale computing power deployment.
At the same time, give play to the advantages of natural resources, build the “4” National Western computing hub node in menggui Ganning, improve the service quality and utilization efficiency of computing power, build a national non real-time computing power guarantee base, and build a “31” provincial new data center as needed. Flexible deployment of “X” edge data centers.
In the past few years, affected by the national requirements for speed-up and fee reduction and the intensification of industry competition, operators once faced the decline of ARPU value and the situation of increasing revenue without increasing profit. However, this situation is easing. Taking China United Network Communications Limited(600050) as an example, its mobile user ARPU was 43.9 yuan last year, an increase of 4.3% year-on-year, while broadband ARPU was flat. Another noteworthy situation is that the relevant requirements for raising speed and reducing fees were not mentioned again at this year’s national two sessions, which is the first time since 2015.
With regard to the regulatory direction faced by operators in the future, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) President Chen Zhongyue believes that facing the background of the vigorous development of digital technology and digital economy, operators have ushered in a new strategic opportunity to reshape the development paradigm and upgrade the development track.
Chen Zhongyue pointed out that through the continuous acceleration and fee reduction for several years, the basic communication needs of users have been met and are no longer the main contradiction; In the future, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) will anchor the main channel of digital economy and the new blue ocean, transform from “raising speed and reducing fees” to “raising speed and improving quality”, further improve the ability to serve the national strategy, and constantly strengthen, optimize and expand China’s digital economy.
At the beginning of March this year, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) a-share company completed a one-year share repurchase, with a total of about 500 million shares repurchased, accounting for 1.7% of the total share capital and 2.2 billion yuan of funds. With regard to the subsequent actions to be taken in the capital market, China United Network Communications Limited(600050) said that in the future, A-share companies will continue to actively study and judge relevant shareholder return measures according to market conditions and capital arrangements; Red chip companies will also comprehensively consider market conditions and capital arrangements and consider repurchase at an appropriate time.
