Performances in China Tower’s external smart tower and energy businesses notably picks up, whilst tower tenancy ratio and tower counts has also climbed.
Tower tenancy ratio increased 1.7% against H1 2023 to 1.80 tenants per site, demonstrating its ability to respond to fulfil the demands of its customers’ 5G network coverage quality, yet incrementally bring more multi-tenant structures to its site portfolio. Some 329,000 5G base stations were constructed during H1 2024, lifting the total number of 5G base station installations to 2.676mn.
This further indicates a shift towards more co-location as China is rolling out 5G and operators are densifying their networks.
Smart tower and energy services gain momentum
Smart tower business revenue jumped 20.9% to RMB2,509mn, with a key focus on tower monitoring solutions and in improving site resource to respond to digital intelligent demands in key industries – such as in providing environment protection, water resources and emergency response. This contributing 63% of its entire smart tower divisional revenue. Its tower sharing revenue made up the remaining 37% of that side of the business, with revenue up 12.7% yoy.
Its energy business portfolio also increased 2.7% yoy in overall revenue during the financial period to RMB2,023mn (US$283.2mn), focused on its battery exchange service for courier and delivery markets, and battery exchange cabinets to improve asset utilisation. It power backup business augmented energy business performance, focusing on targeting markets like communications and finance.
The latest results project that the company is on a solid footing to position technological innovation as the centrepiece of its corporate strategy.
Operating revenue grew steadily in the first half of 2024 to RMB48,247mn, an increase of 3.8% year-on-year. EBITDA reached RMB33,045mn, an increase of 3.2% yoy, with an EBITDA margin of 68.5%.
