China Telecom's (HKG:0728, SHA:601728) push for artificial intelligence in the first half and higher expenditure in the R&D sector boosted the telco's operations during the first half.
Revenue from its China Telecom Cloud service jumped 7.8% year over year to 61.8 billion yuan during the first half, according to a Thursday after-hours disclosure to the Hong Kong bourse.
The telco attributed the increase to the full implementation of its "Cloudification, Digital Transformation and AI for Good" strategy, Chairman and CEO Ke Ruiwen said in a statement.
Intelligence revenue jumped 7.1% to 31.1 billion yuan, while intelligent compute revenue grew 95% and its AI data center business saw revenue rise 9.3%.
"The Company will promote the development of new forms of the intelligent economy, continue to dedicate itself to delivering original and leading scitech innovations, continuously strengthen its inherent AI security capabilities, accelerate the construction of new digital information infrastructure," Ke said.
Research and development expenses during the period jumped 8.9% year over year to 5.21 billion yuan during the period, the telco said.
The telco reported 19.6 billion yuan in profit attributable to equity holders for the first half, compared with 23 billion yuan a year ago, with earnings per share falling to 0.21 yuan from 0.25 yuan year over year.
China Telecom declared an interim dividend of 0.1606 yuan per share, representing a dividend payout ratio of 75% of first-half profit, up 3 percentage points from a year earlier. It is payable Oct. 13 to shareholders of record as of Sept. 9.
