China Telecom Q3 net profit down 48 p.c.

BEIJING, CHINA: China Telecom Corp, the top fixed-line phone company in China, said its quarterly profit fell 48 percent as users of its core fixed-line services continued to migrate to mobile services.

China Telecom is also facing intense competition from rival full-service carriers China Unicom and China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, as all three prepare to spend billions building 3G networks.

China Telecom posted a third-quarter profit of 2.39 billion yuan ($350 million) based on Reuters calculations, compared with 4.6 billion yuan a year earlier, and a consensuc forecast of 3.68 billion yuan from a poll of five analysts.

The company's EBITDA profit margin continued to slip to 41.1 percent in the first nine months of the year, versus 42.3 pct in the first half of 2009.