Sector to demonstrate its growth potential; CM the top pick    We forecast 3Q17service revenue to grow 6% YoY and EBITDA to rise 5% forthe Chinese telcos, driven by improving subscriber growth and stable-toimprovingARPU, partially offset by a higher marketing spend. We expect CMto deliver slightly better growth in 3Q17vs CT (service revenue and net profitboth rising 6%), due to a stronger momentum in Q2and an easier base in3Q16. For CU, we forecast revenue growth to improve to 5% in Q3from 4% inQ2, on account of higher net adds and improving monetization of the internetchannel customers. With CM having been left behind by the market rally, asolid set of numbers could draw attention back to the stock.    Key issues to look out for    The key issues to look out for, in the 3Q17results, are: 1) ARPU trends – ouranalysis in the 1H17review, comparing China’s pricing structure with regionalpeers, suggests that the current environment remains supportive for ARPUimprovement. This should allay investor fears around the impact ofcompetition. 2) Sales and marketing cost trends, and whether CM’s recentmove to boost its spend is having a material knock-on effect on the other twoplayers. 3) TowerCo profitability, which may not rise as quickly as in 1H17,with CM reviewing its tower rental costs in 2H17. 4) More improvement forCU, as the internet channel customers start to contribute more in revenue. Wewill also watch out for signs on how its efficiency drive, post the mixedownership reform, is affecting CU’s cost base.    Deutsche Bank forecasts and reporting dates    The preliminary quarterly reporting dates are: CM (20Oct), CU (27Oct) and CT(27Oct noon). Our quarterly forecasts are shown below. We have also set outthe 9M17forecasts in the report for easier comparison with the to-beannouncedresults.

声明：如本站内容不慎侵犯了您的权益，请联系邮箱：wangshiyuan@epins.cn 我们将迅速删除。