China Unicom H1 net profit up 5 pct,beats view

China Unicom,the country’s No.2 mobile operator,posted a 5 per cent rise in first-half net profit,handily beating expectations,as smartphones such as Apple Inc’s iPhone helped boost earnings.

China Unicom reported a net profit of 2.65 billion yuan ($414.3 million) for the six months ended June,up from 2.52 billion yuan a year earlier,in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday.

The result was also higher than an average forecast of 888 million yuan from a Reuters poll of four analysts.

The carrier,which competes with China Mobile Ltd and China Telecom Corp Ltd ,said earlier this month that mobile subscribers rose a monthly 1.17 per cent to 183.74 million in July. Its 3G subscribers totaled 25.82 million in July,up 1.87 million from June.