[ET Net News Agency, 23 April 2018] UBS Global Research cut its target price for China
Unicom (CU)(00762) to HK$13.3 from HK$14, and reiterated its "buy" rating.
The research house said CU reported a better than expected 1Q 2018 result with service
revenue growth of 8.4% YoY, EBITDA growth of 14% YoY and net profit growth of 249% YoY.
UBS thinks CU's strong 1Q result mainly benefits from mobile business, whose revenue
increased 11.6% YoY. By implementing big data plan strategy, and deepening the cooperation
with internet corps, it expects CU to remain a 6-8% service revenue growth in 2Q.
However, UBS is concerned the cancelation of data roaming fee will drag CU's revenue
growth down to low single digit or even negative in 2H. Hence, it lowered its revenue
forecast by 1.6%-2.2% and lower net profit forecast by 1.0%-5.2% in 2018-20. (KL)