China Mobile recorded an attributable profit of 37.91 billion RMB (5.01 billion U.S. dollars) for the first six months of 2007, up 25.7 percent over the same period last year, the telecommunications giant said Thursday.

Basic earnings per share increased by 25 percent to reach 1.9 RMB (0.25 U.S. dollars), the company said in its interim report.

The group's first-half operating revenue was 16.66 billion RMB (2.2 billion U.S. dollars), representing an increase of 21.6 percent.

Chairman and CEO Wang Jianzhou attributed the growth to a robust Chinese economy and growth in the number of new customers, value-added business and new voice usage.

"Our business has made steady progress," he said.

Revenue from value-added business reached 4.19 billion RMB (0.55 billion U.S. dollars), representing a growth of 35.5 percent over the first half of 2006 and accounting for 25.2 percent of the group's total operating revenue.

The company announced a special interim dividend of 0.085 HK dollars a share, in addition to an ordinary interim dividend of 0.837 HK dollars.

Wang said he expected strong performance ahead for his company, noting that it is the sole mobile telecommunications services partner for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

China Mobile, affected by the overall market sentiment, lost 3.3 HK dollars (0.42 U.S. dollars) Thursday on Hong Kong bourse to close at 80.85 HK dollars (10.35 U.S. dollars) on a turnover of 4.74 billion HK dollars (0.61 billion U.S. dollars).