China Unicom(600050) 民生证券·2024-08-18 06:00Investment Rating - The report maintains a "Recommend" rating for China Unicom (600050 SH) [1][2] Core Views - China Unicom achieved double-digit profit growth in H1 2024, with revenue reaching 197 3 billion yuan (+2 9% YoY) and net profit attributable to parent company reaching 6 04 billion yuan (+10 9% YoY) [1] - The company's networking and computing network businesses showed balanced development, with networking communication revenue at 125 1 billion yuan (+2 1% YoY) and computing network digital intelligence revenue at 43 5 billion yuan (+6 6% YoY) [1] - China Unicom's 5G user base reached 280 million, with penetration exceeding 80%, and ARPU for converged users reached 103 yuan [1] - The company's capital expenditure decreased by 13 4% YoY to 23 9 billion yuan in H1 2024, while the interim dividend payout ratio reached 55%, exceeding expectations [1] Financial Performance - In Q2 2024, China Unicom achieved revenue of 97 85 billion yuan (+3 42% YoY) and net profit attributable to parent company of 3 59 billion yuan (+13 0% YoY) [1] - The company's total connected users reached 1 07 billion, including 339 million mobile users (+3 5% YoY) and 117 million broadband users [1] - China Unicom Cloud revenue grew 24 3% YoY to 31 7 billion yuan, while data center revenue increased 5 0% YoY to 13 1 billion yuan [1] - The company's operating cost ratio decreased by 0 6 percentage points, and management expenses fell by 3 4% YoY [1] Future Development - China Unicom plans to continue developing integrated networking and computing networks through three innovation areas: network innovation, technological innovation, and service innovation [1] - The company has deployed 1 31 million mid-band 5G base stations and 780,000 low-band 5G base stations, with over 200 million 4G mid-band base stations [1] - China Unicom is accelerating the construction of high-speed broadband internet, with 10GPON ports accounting for 79% of total ports [1] - The company is building large-scale computing centers in Shanghai Lingang and Hohhot, aiming for total AI computing power of 10EFLOPS [1] Financial Projections - The report forecasts China Unicom's net profit attributable to parent company to reach 9 299 billion yuan in 2024 (+13 8% YoY), 10 489 billion yuan in 2025 (+12 8% YoY), and 11 738 billion yuan in 2026 (+11 9% YoY) [1][2] - Revenue is expected to grow to 396 255 billion yuan in 2024 (+6 3% YoY), 422 494 billion yuan in 2025 (+6 6% YoY), and 451 244 billion yuan in 2026 (+6 8% YoY) [2] - The company's PE ratio is projected to be 16x in 2024, 14x in 2025, and 13x in 2026 [1][2] Industry Position - China Unicom maintains a leading position in 5G development, with 5G-A key technologies commercially deployed in over 100 cities [1] - The company is actively participating in the national "East Data West Computing" project, with 20+ large computing center parks under construction [1] - China Unicom is building a new "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" national backbone network to connect computing centers with ultra-high-speed channels [1]