HONG KONG, March 31 (Reuters) - China Unicom Ltd., one of the country's three state-run telecom operators, reported a 58 percent rise in yearly net profit, boosted by exceptional gains from the sale of its wireless CDMA business.
Unicom, which lags China Mobile as the country's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, earned 33.9 billion yuan ($4.96 billion) in 2009, up from a restated net profit of 21.4 billion in 2007.
The net result beat a consensus forecast of 21.7 billion yuan profit by 21 analysts polled by Reuters.
The company said in January this year that its 2008 net profit probably rose more than 50 percent.
The stock fell nearly 20 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2008, matching the slide in the benchmark Hang Seng Index .HSI during the same period.
