Telecom sector posts steady growth CHINA’S telecommunications sector posted steady expansion in the first four months of the year, with emerging businesses such as cloud computing growing rapidly, official data showed. The sector posted 529.2 billion yuan (US$78.5 billion) in aggregate revenue during the period, up 8.8% year on year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Emerging businesses, including big data, cloud computing and internet data centers, expanded notably during the period. The emerging business revenue of China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom surged 35% year on year to 103.9 billion yuan. Mobile phone shipments top 18 million units CHINA’S mobile phone shipments reached 18.08 million units in April, down 34.2% from a year ago, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed. In the January-April period, total shipments came in at 87.42 million units, said the academy, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Shipments of 5G mobile phones amounted to 14.59 million units last month, accounting for 80.7% of shipments, data showed. Domestic brands continued to dominate China’s mobile phone market last month with shipments of 16.43 million units, or 90.9% of April’s total. Profits of SOEs drop amid virus resurgences THE combined profits of China’s State-owned enterprises (SOEs) declined in the January-April period owing to a high comparison base in the same period last year and sporadic resurgences of COVID-19, official data showed Friday. Combined profits of the SOEs dropped 3.6% year on year to 1.28 trillion yuan (US$190 billion) in the first four months of the year, according to data from the Ministry of Finance. The SOEs raked in 24.57 trillion yuan in operating revenue in the January-April period, up 9.8% from the same period last year. China facilitates foreign investment in bonds CHINA published rules Friday to allow foreign investors in the Chinese interbank debt market to also buy exchange-traded bonds, as part of efforts to facilitate inbound investment. Investment procedures will also be streamlined for overseas bond investors, China’s central bank, foreign exchange regulator and securities watchdog said in a joint statement. The announcement is a key step in the further opening of China’s bond market, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on its website. | 