China Telecom 2017 profit up on user growth, beats estimate

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China Telecom Corp Ltd, the country's third-largest telecommunications operator, on Wednesday reported a 3.3 percent rise in net profit for 2017 on growing subscriber numbers.

Net profit was 18.62 billion yuan ($2.97 billion), beating an average estimate of 17.35 billion yuan, according to 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue rose 3.9 percent to 366.2 billion yuan, matching an estimate of 366.88 billion yuan.

China Telecom said its 4G mobile subscriber numbers rose to 182 million after it added 60.17 million subscribers in the year. Wireline broadband, for which it has the most number of customers in China, rose by 10.4 million to 134 million in the period.

China Telecom declared a final dividend of HK$0.115 per share.

($1 = 6.2774 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)