A consumer walks past a poster for commercial 5G applications outside a branch of China Telecom in Beijing on Oct 31, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

China Telecom, a leading mobile operator in China, reported its net profit for the first half of 2020 has hit 13.95 billion yuan ($2.01 billion), increasing 0.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the company's financial announcement released Tuesday.

Operating revenue climbed 1.7 percent to 193.80 billion yuan, and service revenues, the company's largest source of income, reached 187.11 billion yuan, rising 2.5 percent year-on-year.

From January to June, China Telecom has spent 43.13 billion yuan, with capital expenditures on 5G reaching 20.15 billion yuan, accounting for 46.7 percent of total spending. The whole year's budget has stayed unchanged at 85 billion yuan.

Through cooperation with China Unicom, China Telecom has built up about 80,000 5G base transceiver stations in the first half of 2020, with nearly 210,000 BTS in use.

The company also focused on industrial digitalization to promote large-scale IDC construction, strengthen cloud-network integration and cloud-edge coordination to meet 5G+cloud+AI carrying demand, said the announcement

By the end of June, its subscriber total was 343 million, up 7.9 million from a year earlier, and 5G subs climbed to 37.84 million.

For future targets in 2020, the telecom operator expected mobile subscribers could expand by 15 million, with 5G package subs adding 80 million.

It will also step up efforts in broadband and smart family service, and aims to add 5 million broadband subs.

China Telecom's third target lies in industrial digitalization, with estimated revenue in that area to achieve double-digit growth by the end of this year.