The head of China Mobile, China's biggest mobile phone operator, said Monday that factory closures and the return of rural workers to their villages had hit the company's revenues.
"China has felt the impact of the financial crisis," chief executive Wang Jianzhou told reporters on the sidelines of industry event Mobile World Congress.
"Because of the reduction in exports we had a decline in international calls which reduced our revenue. Because of the closing down of some factories, many workers have gone back to rural areas which reduced the usage of mobile communications," he added.
The global financial crisis has led to major factory closures in China where export-driven industries have seen demand collapse for their products from overseas.
This has led many unemployed workers from rural areas to return from the cities where they were working to their families back home.
But Wang reassured that the company was still growing strongly despite the financial crisis, pointing to millions of new customers added in 2008 that have taken total subscriber numbers to 460 million.
"Even in difficult times, people need to use their mobile phones," he said.
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