UPDATE: Jefferies Maintains China Mobile Limited at Hold on Earnings Report

In a report published by Jefferies, analyst Cynthia Meng maintained a Hold rating and lowered the price target from $61.00 to $60.65 per share on China Mobile Limited (NYSE: CHL).

Jefferies reported that, “Mgmt. guided Capex of RMB190.2bn for FY13E, up 49% YoY, 19.6% above our higher than consensus estimate. As expected, TD-LTE is borne by listco (RMB41.7bn). To support future LTE traffic, CM guided to invest RMB59bn (+65% YoY) in transmission in FY13E. Infrastructure Capex is also guided up significantly by 76% YoY to RMB24.7bn. As 2G subs still account for 95.6% of voice traffic and 74% of data traffic, continued investment in GSM is necessary to ensure quality services, in our view. FY13E GSM Capex down 32% YoY. We are modeling RMB193bn for FY14E, similar to that of FY13E, given CM's strategy to use TDLTE as the nationwide major data traffic network in the future.”

Shares of China Mobile Limited closed at $53.37 on Thursday.