Chairman's Statement

Dear Shareholders,

In 2024, China Tower Corporation Limited (“the Company” or “we”) actively seized the opportunities brought about by the state strategies of “Cyberpower”, “Digital China”, and “Dual Carbon” goals. Centered around the strategic positioning of a “world-class integrated digital infrastructure service provider and a highly competitive information and new energy applications provider”, we continued to develop our business in terms of sharing, service, innovation, technology and value creation, establishing an operating system that is professional, intensive, delicate, efficient and digitalized. We focused on reinforcing our core operational capabilities and competitiveness. Our business developments met expectations, our overall performance achieved steady growth, and our high-quality development capabilities and corporate value were further enhanced.

Financial Performance

In 2024, the Company’s operating revenue maintained steady growth, reaching RMB97,772 million, an increase of 4.0% year-on-year. EBITDA reached RMB66,559 million, an increase of 4.7% year-on-year, with an EBITDA margin¹ of 68.1%. Profit attributable to the owners of the Company reached RMB10,729 million, an increase of 10.0% year-on-year, with a net profit margin of 11.0%, demonstrating a continuous improvement in profitability.

Net cash generated from operating activities amounted to RMB49,468 million, an increase of RMB16,628 million year-on-year. Capital expenditures stood at RMB31,941 million, with free cash flow² reaching RMB17,527 million, up by RMB16,402 million year-on-year.

As at 31 December 2024, our total assets amounted to RMB332,834 million, with interest-bearing liabilities of RMB92,542 million and a gearing ratio³ of 31.0%, representing a decrease of 0.4 percentage point from the end of 2023. Our financial position remains healthy and stable.

The Company attaches great importance to shareholder returns. After considering our profitability, cash flow and future development needs, the Board of the Company has recommended a final dividend of RMB0.30796 per share (pre-tax)⁴ for the year ended 31 December 2024. Together with the interim dividend distributed, the total full-year dividend amounted to RMB0.41696 per share (pre-tax)⁴, representing an increase of 11.5% compared to 2023 and equivalent to a payout ratio of 76% of our annual distributable net profit.

Business Performance

In 2024, we worked together as a cohesive team, sparing no effort to deepen the “One Core and Two Wings” strategy. We continued to strengthen our advantages in resource coordination and enhance our capabilities in reform and innovation. As a result, we achieved steady business growth and enhanced operating efficiency, while further solidifying the foundations for high-quality and sustainable development.

Solid foundation enabled stable growth in TSP Business

The Company fully delivered its role as part of a nationwide consortium of telecommunication infrastructure developers and as the leading force in new 5G infrastructure construction. We further overcame challenges in the Dual-Gigabit network joint-entry implementation, as well as in special projects such as upgrading signal strength and extending broadband coverage to all border areas. We were able to capture opportunities presented by the continuous expansion of 5G network penetration and coverage in China. By working continuously to improve resource coordination and sharing, and enhancing our professional operations, we were able to fully satisfy customer network construction needs and maintain stable growth in the TSP business. In 2024, our TSP business recorded a revenue of RMB84,119 million, an increase of 2.4% year-on-year.

Tower business. We focused on high-traffic and high-value scenarios that are of keen interest to our customers, as well as other key scenarios such as high-speed railways, highways, borders and rural areas. We conducted targeted and purposive scenario-based coverage analysis and site planning, strengthened efforts to tackle difficult sites, and supported customers in building 5G premium networks in an intensive and effective manner. We developed and deployed a 3D indoor and outdoor simulation support system to visualize the coverage of planned sites and construction solutions, helping TSPs accurately implement their network coverages. By adhering to a customer-oriented philosophy, we constantly optimized our business processes, standardized business management, and improved the efficiency of order acquisition and delivery, billing and payment collection, enhancing service capabilities and customer satisfaction. In 2024, our revenue from the Tower business amounted to RMB75,689 million, an increase of 0.9% from the previous year. As at 31 December 2024, the Company managed a total of 2.094 million tower sites, an increase of 48,000 year-on-year. We have gained 120,000 new TSP tenants since the end of 2023, bringing the total number of TSP tenants to 3.544 million. Our TSP tenancy ratio increased from 1.68 at the end of 2023 to 1.72, further improving the level of co-location.

DAS business. We continued to strengthen our coordination and sharing capabilities for key scenarios such as large transportation hubs, landmark buildings, subways, large venues, Grade 3A hospitals and tertiary institutions. We collaborated with customers to carry out 5G upgrades on high-speed railways and unleashed more demand for high-value scenarios. Leveraging our advantages of coordinated site entry and construction, and our co-building and co-sharing policies, we actively implemented special projects for covering elevators and underground parking lots and expanded the deployment of shared low-power repeaters to help TSPs quickly and efficiently improve network coverage to elevate people’s livelihoods. We continued to enhance product and solution design capabilities and innovation in DAS shared products, which enabled us to provide customers with differentiated active and passive DAS sharing solutions, meeting the demand for upgrading of existing DAS to 5G network. In 2024, our revenue from the DAS business reached RMB8,430 million, an increase of 18.1% year-on-year. As at 31 December 2024, we had covered buildings with a cumulative area of 12.68 billion square meters, up by 24.9% year-on-year, while high-speed railway tunnels and subway coverage reached a cumulative length of 29,315 kilometers, up by 21.8% year-on-year.

Forged strengths to achieve healthy growth of Two Wings business

During the year, in view of the opportunities brought about by the development of the digital economy and the “Dual Carbon” goals, we worked continuously to strengthen product innovation, optimized business planning, further improved our core competencies, and promoted the healthy development of our Two Wings business. In 2024, the revenue of the Two Wings business reached RMB13,388 million and accounted for 13.7% of our overall operating revenue, an increase of 1.5 percentage points over the same period last year.

Smart Tower business. We fully leveraged our core capabilities and advantages in spatial digital intelligence governance to serve the national development strategies of “Digital China” and “Beautiful China”, continuously refining our Smart Tower business. We expanded our Smart Tower business across vertical sectors to consolidate our leading position. This was achieved by deepening strategic cooperation with key customers, creating premium projects across various industry segments. As a result, we secured leadership in incremental domestic market share in a number of key scenarios such as disaster alert and farmland protection. We enhanced research and innovation to foster core capabilities. In these areas, we fortified the distributed deployment on our platform and strengthened algorithm development for mid-to-high point scenarios, building a strong platform foundation and focusing on key service scenarios. We identified additional customer demands to promote service upgrades. This saw us enhancing our localized technical support teams and improving our “companion” service capabilities to meet customers’ iterative development needs in a timely manner and achieved high-quality project delivery. Relying on the large-scale operation and maintenance system, we built a professional network management platform, equipped with the ability to accurately diagnose incidents occurring in the terminal devices, dispatch tasks in real time and handle incidents in a timely manner. We deepened service integration and strengthened industry collaboration. By expanding our partner base as well as signing strategic cooperation agreements with tertiary institutions and leading enterprises, we achieved coordinated development.

In 2024, the Smart Tower business generated revenue of RMB8,911 million, up by 22.4% year-on-year, among which, revenue from our Tower Monitoring business reached RMB5,539 million, accounting for 62.2% of our revenue from the Smart Tower business.

Energy business. We focused on key business segments such as battery exchange and power backup, refining operations and solidifying product, service and platform competitiveness in order to turn Energy business into a specialized business stream. For the battery exchange business, we continued to engage users more effectively in the delivery and courier markets, enhancing service capabilities and achieving stable user growth. As at 31 December 2024, the number of battery exchange users reached 1.304 million, anaddition of 159,000 since the end of 2023, further maintaining our leading position in the market for battery exchange for low-speed electric vehicles. We leveraged the opportunities brought about by national policies on safe charging, giving full play to our own capabilities and advantages in laying out economic and efficient community charging infrastructure and providing safe and convenient battery charging services for low-speed electric vehicles to the community. These efforts helped expand our customer base of our battery exchange business. For the power backup business, we focused on pivotal industries such as telecommunications and finance, along with key scenarios, to expand our premium customer base. We used our reliable power backup service as an entry point to explore the demand for monitoring, energy consumption management and maintenance services, providing a comprehensive “power backup +” industry solution and forging the “energy butler” brand.

In 2024, our Energy business achieved revenue of RMB4,477 million, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%, of which the revenue from battery exchange business accounted for RMB2,500 million, with its contribution to the Energy business reaching 55.8%.

Greater support for technological innovation empowered business development

The Company continued to improve its system for innovation and accelerated technological capabilities development. Focusing on key areas such as green and low-carbon development, DAS, edge computing networks and AI, we addressed the challenges in core technologies and accelerated the application of these innovations to provide strong support for business development. Our six scientific and technological innovation centers have been fully operational. These facilities contributed to the building of innovation highlands that integrate product R&D, commercialization, industry incubation and talent cultivation. We further promoted the management of the “four lists” of competencies and capabilities, task and project planning, resource allocation, and the commercialization of research outcomes. In doing so, we effectively improved innovation, efficiency and effectiveness. In 2024, our R&D investment and the number of R&D personnel increased by 40% and 60% respectively, compared to 2023. During the same period, the number of patent applications and authorizations surged by 58% and 68% respectively. We established science and technology associations and promoted innovation through the formation of joint laboratories and joint innovation centers, and partnered with research institutes, well-known tertiary institutions, and leading enterprises, achieving deep integration and collaborative innovation across the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. The various forms of collaboration have helped create a high-level ecosystem, effectively harnessing technology and innovation synergy.

Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility

The Company actively practiced the concept of environmental, social and governance (ESG) by continuously improving its ESG management system, deepening integration of ESG management and business operations, and completing the meticulous disclosure of ESG information. We strictly adhere to the rules and regulations governing listed companies and other regulatory requirements. We also seek ways to improve governance mechanisms and maintain a high standard of corporate governance. We constantly improve our internal control systems, strengthen the management of compliance operations, and effectively enhance risk prevention and control.

We always integrate the fulfillment of social responsibility into our corporate development strategy and daily operations through multi-layered initiatives such as technological innovation, resource sharing, green and low-carbon practices, and our efforts to improve people’s livelihoods. These initiatives have won wide recognition from our stakeholders. In 2024, we fully implemented green development initiatives by promoting the “Digital Infrastructure Co-built and Co-share Project”, expanding the applications of green energy such as deploying photovoltaic power generation and energy storage systems at base stations, and taking practical actions to fulfill our “Dual Carbon” responsibilities. We successfully completed major communications and network information security services, including for the 14th National Winter Games and the “Two Sessions”. We responded quickly to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, providing emergency communications support to ensure the smooth operation of rescue, onsite command and communications security for the protection of people’s lives and property. We continued to improve the construction of telecommunication infrastructure in rural and remote areas, helping TSPs to provide inclusive services and narrowing the digital divide. We adapted to local conditions and gave full play to our advantages to further support rural revitalization, improve people’s livelihoods, and contribute to the harmonious development of society.

Outlook

Looking ahead, under the guidance of our established strategy, we will seek to further deepen our “One Core and Two Wings” strategy, enhance our core competitiveness to ensure a robust foundation for our solid and high-quality development, and achieve increased growth in our enterprise value, while creating greater returns for our shareholders, customers and society.

TSP business: With increased penetration of 5G network coverage, extended service scenarios and expanded network coverage, we will proactively capture the opportunities presented by national strategies including helping to overcome the challenges in the Dual-Gigabit network joint-entry implementation, and other special projects such as signal strength upgrade and the extension of broadband coverage to all border areas, as well as the “Sailing” action plan for large-scale 5G applications. We will reinforce our advantages in resource coordination and sharing, develop innovative service solutions, and enhance service capabilities, meeting our clients’ network construction needs. We will solidify our reputation as a service provider offering optimal costs, efficient delivery and superior maintenance, while minimizing management risks. This will further highlight our role as part of a nationwide consortium of telecommunication infrastructure developers and as the leading force in new 5G infrastructure construction.

Smart Tower business: With the vigorous development of the digital economy and the accelerated empowerment of digital technologies in social governance, we will continue to deepen our presence in key industries such as ecology, security, and sectors that concern people’s livelihoods. We will focus on digital-intelligence spatial governance and fully leverage our resource endowments and core capabilities to build a unique mid-to-high point perception network. We will also proactively advance our positioning in emerging industries such as edge computing to empower the digital intelligence transformation across industries, and support the development strategies of “Digital China” and “Beautiful China”.

Energy business: We are seeing the acceleration of green transition across society and all aspects of the economy with the efficient development of innovative applications of new energy. We will actively optimize the layout of our battery exchange network, improve user classification management and rapidly expand our user base. By enhancing service levels and user retention, we will consolidate our market leadership in the battery exchange market. We will focus on pivotal industries such as telecommunications and finance along with key scenarios, promote a comprehensive “power backup +” industry solution, and forge the “energy butler” brand. We will strengthen our core capabilities in products and services, and adapt to local conditions to promote the implementation of comprehensive energy services such as photovoltaics, energy storage and saving, effectively supporting the “Dual Carbon” goals.

We will continue to optimize the planning of key technological innovations, improve our system for technological innovation, and focus on key areas such as next-generation mobile communications, edge computing networks, AI and new energy. We will address the challenges in original and critical technological breakthroughs, increase our capacity to lead technological innovation, accelerate the commercialization of research outcomes to nurture and grow new quality productive forces and provide strong support and empowerment for the Company’s high-quality development.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Mr. Gao Chunlei, who has stepped down as an executive director of the Company. Mr. Gao was diligent and dedicated in his duties and made a tremendous contribution to the implementation of the Company’s “One Core and Two Wings” strategy, helping to promote its high-quality development. On behalf of the Board, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Mr. Gao for his contribution to the Company during his term of service. I would also like to extend my warmest welcome to Ms. Zhang Wei, who has joined the Board.

The Company’s achievements and progress over the past year would not have been possible without the hard work of all our employees, the strong support of our customers, and the trust of all our shareholders. Finally, on behalf of the Board, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all our shareholders, customers, and the public for their support, and I sincerely thank all employees for their hard work and dedication.

Zhang Zhiyong

Chairman

Beijing, China, 17 March 2025