[ET Net News Agency, 23 October 2017] CICC Research trimmed its target price for China
Mobile (CM)(00941) by 3% to HK$97, and maintained its "buy" rating.
The research house said CM's 3Q results were in line and showed improvement. Thanks to
its largest mobile user base and leading 4G penetration, CM maintained solid growth in
service revenue and net profit, which CICC believes will last until early-2019, mainly due
to: (1) it has the market's highest 4G penetration, enhancing its competitiveness and
maintaining stable user ARPU; (2) Data traffic ramping up rapidly, improving CM's revenue
structure and facilitating long-term top line growth. (3) 5G-related investment will not
increase significantly until licenses issued; and, (4) new innovative business, such as
IoT, can quickly increase popularity to speed up digital transformation of carriers,
opening up future potential growth. (KL)