The world's largest mobile carrier revealed it encountered its first annual profit drop in 14 years.

China Mobile, with a reported 776 million subscribers, stated it will spend more money in efforts to increase its 4G mobile network. The company launched its 4G service in December 2013.

In terms of projections, China Mobile plans to sell 100 million devices equipped with 4G technology yet secure 50 million 4G users by the conclusion of this year.

"Costly subsidies, particularly for the iPhone, and the plan to raise capital spending, combined with a proposed value-added tax for China's carriers, could all weigh heavily on China Mobile's future profits as it tries to reinvent itself in the mobile Internet era," reported Reuters.

A driving force in China Mobile's upcoming sales will be Apple's iPhone.

"Most of our 1.34 million 4G users are using an iPhone," said China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua, via Reuters. "It's just been getting started for one or two months. So far it's hard to tell how that will affect our business."

As Latin Post reported, China Mobile started to sell the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on Dec. 12. According to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the iPhone 5s encountered strong demand from the Chinese consumers during the fourth quarter of 2013. Despite the "strong demand," Apple's market share grew by one percentage point in comparison to 2013's third quarter. As a result, the iPhone company's market share grew from 6 percent to 7 percent. With the 7 percent market share, Apple finished as the fifth-largest smartphone vendor in China.

"Apple has enormous respect for China Mobile and we are excited to begin working together," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement in December. "China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network."

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, via CNET, the deal between Apple and China Mobile could result in 17 million iPhones sold during 2014.

For 2013, China Mobile's net profit fell to 121.8 billion yuan.

China Mobile's loss is said to be due to the WeChat app and its 355 million monthly active users. WeChat has been used to avoid texting charges, which has usually been a source of revenue for mobile carriers. China Mobile hopes their subscribers will use larger amounts of mobile data as more people are connecting to apps such as WeChat.

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