HONG KONG -- China Unicom, the second largest Chinese mobile group listed in Hong Kong, Thursday announced that its annual profits last year reached 6.13 billion RMB (US780 million), up 24.3 percent than that of 2005.

The total revenue of the year is 94.29 billion RMB, up 8.3 percent with earnings of per share amounting to 0.486 RMB. The proposed final dividend is 0.18 HK dollars.

China Unicom said its mobile subscribers in 2005 increased 14.57 million to 140 million with message volume increased 38.8 percent to 75.6 billion pieces.

The Chairman of the board Chang Xiaobing said the company will take the advantage of the development space of the mainland market and speed up its development basing on the its present achievement.

The price of China Unicom closed 4.81 percent higher at 11.32 HK dollars Thursday.