Goldman Sachs released a research report on August 27th, pointing out that China Telecom's average monthly per household revenue from mobile services (ARPU) and profit margin remained stable in the first half of the year, becoming a highlight of the telecommunications industry performance. The group's mobile ARPU increased slightly by 0.2% year-on-year in the first half of the year, while its peers declined by 1 to 3%. The bank believes that the group's second-quarter performance should help alleviate investors' concerns about revenue slowdown and deteriorating profitability, and continues to give it a "buy" rating, raising its profit forecast for 2024 to 2026 by 1.8%, 2.5%, and 1.3% respectively, and slightly raising the target price from HKD 5.3 to HKD 5.4. The report points out that the management of China Telecom previously indicated that the EBITDA profit margin would continue to decline, but the decline rate would slow down in the next few years. However, due to strict cost controls, the group's EBITDA profit margin in the second quarter increased by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year. The bank believes that this should increase investors' confidence in profit growth in the second half of the year, and believes that the group can continue to achieve strong profit growth this year.