BEIJING - China Unicom, one of China's three State-owned telecom companies, on Friday said its net profits in the first half of the year had risen 4.5 percent year on year to 6.99 billion yuan ($1.11 billion).

Business revenues, however, dropped 3.3 percent from a year earlier to 144.69 billion yuan, according to the company's interim report.

Though business revenues dropped, development and structural improvements, especially in mobile broadband and high speed fixed-line broadband, are of a higher quality, according to the report.

The firm's mobile broadband subscribers grew by 8.68 million to 157.79 million in the first half of the year, about 54.5 percent of its total mobile users.