China Telecom released its semi-annual report for 2026, posting revenue of 259.01 billion yuan for the first half, down 3.9% year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company came in at 19.59 billion yuan, a decline of 14.9% from the same period last year.
Despite short-term earnings pressure, the company's AI-driven transformation strategy—centered on "Token-as-a-core-business"—continued to gain traction. Revenue from intelligent services rose against the broader trend, while the interim dividend payout ratio was increased to 75%.
Core operating revenue reached 244.1 billion yuan, of which telecommunications services contributed 213.0 billion yuan. Intelligent business revenue stood at 31.1 billion yuan, up 7.1% year-on-year, and revenue from the Tianyi Cloud segment hit 61.8 billion yuan, representing a 7.8% increase.
R&D expenses for the period totaled 5.21 billion yuan, up 8.9% from a year earlier, driven by increased investment in key areas such as cloud and cloud-network integration, networking, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and security, as the company steps up efforts to boost technological innovation and sharpen its competitive edge.