One of China’s state-owned telecommunications giants, China Telecom Corp. Ltd., only raised a third of its full-year investment targets in the first six months of 2021, reports Caixin. A senior company executive revealed that a shortage of semiconductor chips and a weak demand for its 5G equipment were contributing factors.
The company spent RMB 27 billion ($4.2 billion) in the first six months of this year, far less than half of the previously announced RMB 87 billion earmarked for the whole year, Liu Guiqing, executive vice president at China Telecom, said during an earnings conference call with analysts and the media Tuesday.
One reason is the ongoing chip shortage, which led to the slower-than-expected supplies of some equipment used for the company’s investment projects, Liu said.