China Unicom's profits dropped about 81 percent in the first nine months of the year partly due to higher selling and marketing expenses.
The company raked in nearly 1.6 billion yuan, or 236 million U.S. dollars in net income, compared with nearly 8.2 billion yuan a year earlier.
The carrier added about 9.8 million subscribers in the period, bringing the total to 262 million.
But China Unicom may be seeing a turnaround.
For September alone, it said it expected its net addition of fourth-generation (4G) subscribers to climb over 6 million.
Meanwhile, China's largest telecom service provider China Mobile say its first-half net profit rose to 60.6 billion yuan, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier.
This is China Mobile's first interim profit rise in three years.
For more on this, we are joined by CRI Financial Analyst Cao Can.
