[ET Net News Agency, 16 March 2020] Morgan Stanley lowered its target price for China
Unicom (CU)(00762) to HK$8 from HK$8.5 and maintained its "overweight" rating.
The research house believes China Mobile (00941) will benefit more from the upcoming 5G
cycle. Morgan lowered CU's net profit by 10%/11%/8% in 2019-21; the dividend was lowered
by the same scale, as it assumed a stable dividend payout ratio.
Morgan forecast CU's 4Q 2019 service revenue of Rmb65.0bn (+2.1%), pre-IFRS 16 EBITDA
of Rmb19.4bn (+4.0%), and net profit of Rmb1.5bn (+29.5%, based on CU's preliminary 2019
net profit of Rmb11.3bn). (KL)