According to exclusive information from informed sources, in the first two months of this year, China Telecom's industry digital accounts receivable have shown double-digit growth, with the situation being particularly severe in five provincial branches. It is understood that accounts receivable refer to the money not yet collected by the operator after providing services or delivering projects to government and enterprise clients. The continuous increase in this scale is clearly not a positive sign, indicating that the amount owed to the operator is growing. In fact, in recent years, the accounts receivable from government and enterprise clients for the three major operators have indeed been increasing year by year. Such receivables often come with characteristics such as large amounts, long payment cycles, and slow collection, which can severely strain the operator's cash flow. In 2025, China Mobile's government and enterprise accounts receivable balance reached 108.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.8%; China Unicom's stood at 80.1 billion yuan, up 14.1% year-on-year, with a growth rate significantly lower than the industry average; China Telecom's was 31.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.8%, the highest among the three operators. This upward trend is not favorable and represents a considerable operational risk. It is worth noting that, as of the end of February this year, the increase in industry digital accounts receivable for the five provincial branches—Hebei Telecom, Chongqing Telecom, Tibet Telecom, Gansu Telecom, and Shanxi Telecom—has already exceeded 40%. There is an urgent need to step up collection efforts, and projects with problematic payment recovery should no longer be pursued.
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