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China Unicom accelerated the construction of intelligent comprehensive digital information infrastructure with the characteristics of “high-speed and ubiquitous, air-space-ground integration, cloud-network integration, intelligent agility, green and low-carbon, and secure and controllable”, to build a solid digital base for economic and social development.

China Unicom pursued moderate advancement, promoted use through construction and combined construction with use, unswervingly increased investment and made every effort to make a leap from “basic connection” to “connection of all things”.

Accelerating the construction of premium 5G network

China Unicom fully promoted the construction of premium 5G networks, so that more and more customers can enjoy China Unicom’s premium network services from prosperous cities to tranquil villages, from the roof of the world to islands of South China Sea.

• The Company joined hands with China Telecom for further co-build co-share, and worked together to create a premium 5G network with wider coverage, stronger capabilities, better quality and better experience, so as to achieve continuous 5G network coverage in rural areas and above with faster speed, higher reliability and more extensive scenarios. China Unicom’s 5G base stations accounted for around 30% of the world’s total.
• The Company accelerated the construction of the 900MHz low-band basic network, and effectively improved the network coverage in rural areas and remote areas.
• The Company accelerated the promotion of the ubiquitous interconnection of human, machines and devices. In April, the Company was the first to achieve IoT connections exceeding human connections, that is, the number of mobile IoT connections exceeded the number of mobile phone users. Relying on the capabilities of its independently developed Yanfei-zhilian Intelligent Connection Management Platform and Yanfei-gewu Device Management Platform, the Company provided secure and reliable terminal, network and cloud integrated services for industries such as financial payments, smart buildings, intelligent operation and maintenance of industrial equipment.

Accelerating the construction of premium gigabit broadband network

The Company created a premium gigabit broadband network that connects thousands of households driven by the “dual gigabit” strategy.

• The gigabit fibre network coverage doubled to more than 200 million households, securing a leading position in the northern region and precise coverage in the southern region.
• The Company carried out cooperation for construction of broadband network. Through social cooperation with China Broadnet and private capital partners, it built 51.37 million broadband ports, accounting for 21% of the total.
• The Company launched a broadband network digital operation platform to provide a variety of convenient network diagnosis services for China Unicom’s broadband subscribers, letting them fully understand the status of the network.

Accelerating the construction of premium government and enterprise network

The Company launched premium government and enterprise networks with wide coverage, low-latency and high-reliability, providing intelligent, secure and high-quality dedicated line services, and continued to maintain the industry-leading position in terms of premium dedicated line brands. The coverage extended to additional 59 new cities and reached 307 cities in total, accelerating the digital transformation and upgrading of government and enterprise customers.

Accelerating the establishment of new advantages of computing-network integration

The Company implemented the national strategy of “Eastern Data and Western Computing” to build a high-quality computing power network, build a solid base and establish a cloud-network-edge integrated scheduling system. It improved its international network capabilities, and continuously enhanced its integrated computing-network service capabilities featuring “connection + perception + computing + intelligence”.

• The Company allocated cloud resource pools in accordance with the three-level structure of “5 + 4 (core) + 31 (provincial) + X (local/edge)” to accelerate the deployment of eight national hub nodes of “Eastern Data and Western Computing” in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Gansu and Ningxia.
• The Company built a full-area all-optical network with ultra-wide coverage, ultra-large bandwidth, ultra-low latency and intelligent scheduling, created a high-quality public Internet centred on subscribers and computing power, established a smart metropolitan network with the integration of multiple businesses, and formed a layout of 13 core nodes of computing power, leading the industry in terms of network latency.
• The Company built a premium industrial Internet integrating computing and network, to provide high-quality and differentiated services for 2B subscribers.

China Unicom cooperated with China Telecom to comprehensively deepen the co-build co-share in 5G, 4G and basic network resources, which improved the efficiency of resource utilisation, formed leading network capabilities and promoted the high-quality, healthy and green development of digital information infrastructure.

• The scale and coverage of 5G network continued to remain comparable to the industry. The Company basically achieved continuous mid-band coverage of hotspot rural areas, towns and above. 200M capability was fully deployed in key scenarios across the country and major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chengdu, among which, Beijing became the first city in the world with city-wide 200M continuous coverage.
• The two parties put in service an additional 450,000 4G shared base stations, reaching 1.1 million in total. The 4G network coverage of China Unicom increased by 29.5%, with one 4G network covering indoor and outdoor in Beijing and Guizhou. Based on the remarkable results achieved with 4G co-build co-share, both parties reached a consensus to accelerate the consolidation of one 4G network.
• The Company expanded the scope of cooperation in infrastructure co-build co-share and co-maintenance, and actively promoted the cooperation in connection with trunk lines, local resources and IDC dual-line access, with the co-build co-share rate of 100% for trunk lines and over 95% for local optical cables. The two parties negotiated to formulate IDC access technology solutions, carried out dual-line access pilot projects for more than 20 provincial companies, and further promoted the cooperation in cloud-network integration, communication equipment rooms, international submarine cables, emergency support and other aspects to realise the synergy potential.
• The Company optimised the joint management mechanism and jointly developed a co-build co-share blockchain scheduling platform to strengthen the perceptual reciprocal monitoring and ensure network quality and smooth coordination.

Through the adoption of innovative technologies, digital-driven precision construction, enhancement of intelligent operation capabilities, and improvement of operation mechanism and process, China Unicom has continuously improved the network quality.

Application of new technologies and new equipment of network

• The Company improved the high-speed mobile coverage of 5G high-speed railways, continued to promote network cloudification and centralisation of core networks, and its 5G technology won the first prize of the Science and Technology Award of the Radio Association of China in 2022.
• The Company completed the IPv6 upgrade of 4G network and simultaneously deployed IPv6 for gigabit optical network, 5G and new direct links. The Company built the industry’s first security function chain (SFC) and 5G IoT IPv6 single stack pilot, and became the first in China to receive the “IPv6 +” Ready1. 0 certificate.
• The Company optimised the China169 backbone network in key directions, and newly opened 22 inter-provincial direct connection directions, with the average latency of the entire network below 29ms, maintaining its leading position in the industry.

Network and business collaboration to improve subscribers’ perception

• The Company became the first in the industry to realise nationwide centralised application, end-to-end automatic scheduling and activation, and centralised monitoring and operation of 5G slicing business. The time needed for business activation was shortened from the industry average of one week to a few minutes.
• The Company carried out precise construction based on subscriber demand and combined with Big Data means, and handled a total of 7,679 cases through complaint-driven construction, resulting in 99.5% decrease in customer complaints and a significant improvement in network quality.

Building smart operation service capabilities with computing network

• The Company continued to promote resource visualisation and improve Big Data operation capability and intelligent operation capability. According to the evaluation of the National Mobile Network Quality Report (22Q3) issued by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), the Company ranked first in the proportion of 5G network with downlink access speed above 100Mbps, with the highest 4G network average downlink access speed of 45.79Mbps.
• The Company continued to improve the independent implementation capability of network ICT and 5G private network business, as well as the operation capability of digital delivery to ensure the quality of services delivered.

Adhering to the philosophy of “carefulness, focus, trust, excellence and intelligence”, China Unicom provided 131 communication support for major national conferences and events such as the “Two Sessions”, the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Conference, the Shanghai International Import Expo, and the Launch and Recovery of Shenzhou-series Launch Vehicle in 2022. The Company achieved zero occurrence of major network security incidents, zero tampering of important websites, zero leakage of important data, and meeting people’s expectations.

Communication support for the Beijing Winter Olympics Games and Winter Paralympic Games

In 2022, the world watched as the Olympic Games were held in Beijing. As the sole official telecommunication services partner of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Games and Winter Paralympic Games, China Unicom has achieved more than 20 “global firsts” and “historical breakthroughs” in fields such as “smart event management, smart spectator experience, and smart athlete participation, building the most advanced digital base for a high-tech Winter Olympics.

• The Company dispatched a total of 377,800 support personnel and 166,100 vehicles, and formed 42 on-site support teams composed of 1,503 people to provide 95,000 services for the Winter Olympics Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
• The Company compiled the Winter Olympics Legacy Report and Case Collection of China Unicom to promote the replication and promotion of the technological achievements of the Winter Olympics and facilitate the digital transformation and development of various industries.

Participating in disaster relief

In 2022, natural disasters occurred frequently in China. China Unicom made early deployment, revised its emergency communication support plans, investigated hidden dangers, carried out emergency drills, responded quickly, and took up various emergency rescue and communications support tasks. Natural disasters such as typhoon “Xianba”, “Mulan”, “Ma-an”, “Xuanlannuo” and “Meifa”, as well as the mountain torrents in Datong, Qinghai, and the 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Luding, Ganzi, Sichuan, all resulted in local communication interruptions. All units of the Company responded quickly and worked together to repair and restore damaged communication facilities in a timely manner, while meeting the urgent communication needs of the people. Throughout the year, the Company invested a total of approximately RMB55.53 million, dispatched 65,739 person-times and 23,183 rescue vehicles, and provided 3,641 emergency equipment and 14,982 emergency fuel generators for disaster relief. Through early deployment, early implementation and early prevention, there were no large-scale base station shutdowns or widespread communication interruptions in 2022, leading to a reduction of RMB375 million in direct economic losses as compared with 2021.


Supporting scientific and technological pandemic prevention

In the face of the pandemic, China Unicom’s cadres and employees devoted themselves to the front line without fear of difficulties and challenges, dedicatedly served the pandemic prevention and control to ensure the safety and smooth operation of the whole network during the pandemic, ensure the stable operation of various pandemic prevention systems, and ensure the uninterrupted customer service. The Company launched more than 20 scientific and technological anti-pandemic products represented by Digital Sentinel and Cloud Cabin, and properly conducted the communication big data digital travel record service and the protection of user privacy after they went offline, contributing China Unicom’s strength to the prevention and control of the pandemic.

China Unicom gave full play to its advantages of information and communication network technology, accelerated the development of modern industrial system, facilitated the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, promoted the development of digital economy and the upgrading of information consumption, and made full efforts in the field of digital economy, so as for the whole society to further share the new achievements brought by the development of information communication.

By leveraging the advantages of cloud, Big Data, IoT, AI, blockchain and security integration, China Unicom unleashed the value of data, deeply supported modern industrial data governance and data security services. It also helped to strengthen and expand industrial Internet application products for some key industries, and supported the development of digital economy, digital society and digital government.

In accordance with national policies such as the “Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Construction of Digital Governments” and the “Guidelines for the Construction of the National Integrated Government Big Data System”, China Unicom was comprehensively building its integrated digital government capabilities and product system. In 2022, the Company newly launched 44 self-developed products in the digital government field, with a total of 151 products.

The Company upgraded and created more than 300 integrated solutions, including the “China Unicom Digital Government Industry Comprehensive Solution”, “China Unicom Government Service Baseline Solution” and “China Unicom Government Service Big Data Solution”. With a total of more than 1,100 solutions, the Company provided full-chain digital government services from top-level design, integrated solutions, integrated delivery to operation services, which covered cloud, network, data, applications and security, with efforts to build the No.1 brand of “Unicom Service” for digital government.

China Unicom has upgraded its new smart city capability system called “CityNext” which focused on key areas such as city governance, social governance, economic governance and grassroots governance. It launched 14 key solutions, including new smart city comprehensive solutions, county-level smart city public service platform operation, “unified management with one network” for city operation, all-round integrated governance, urban economic operation services and smart community, and provided services for more than 700 projects across the country. Based on the insight into the five new changes in smart city in refined governance, platform operation, new infrastructure, data and technology application, China Unicom proposed the “five new” concepts and capability system of “new infrastructure”, “new technology”, “new governance”, “new operation” and “new value” of smart city.

Focusing on 11 key industries, China Unicom created 30 key self-developed products and 11 baseline solutions. Based on the independent innovation capabilities of 5G, cloud, Big Data, IoT, AI, blockchain and security, China Unicom integrated the independent capabilities with industrial characteristics such as identification resolution, industrial AI, 5G high-precision positioning and industrial external network, and formed comprehensive solutions with China Unicom characteristics in typical industrial scenarios such as product traceability, unmanned inspection in power plants, and one network coverage for above-ground and underground facilities. The Company established legion groups for equipment, mining, steel, automobile and clothing, integrating CT, IT, DT and OT capabilities, to accelerate the extension of industrial internet from auxiliary production to core production processes.

China Unicom leveraged its advantages of digital health integration and innovation, continued to further penetrate the medical and health industry, fulfilling the mission of “serving medical reform and benefiting people’s livelihood”, and bringing new momentum to “Healthy China”. Having built a number of national, provincial and municipal demonstration projects in the fields of medical cloud, smart medical applications and health care big data, the Company used next-generation technologies such as Big Data, AI and 5G to build city-level health brain base and capabilities, and provide intelligent medical and health data services to the governments, medical institutions and industries.

China Unicom has formed a top-level architecture of “Intelligent Vehicle-Road Collaborative System” by focusing on six key issues, including 5G private network capabilities, edge collaborative computing, secure and reliable terminals, common ability aggregation, open service capabilities, and pan-scene operation. After two years of independent research and development, the Company launched the 5G vehicle-road collaboration service platform which supports six major scenario modules including vehicle-road collaboration, remote driving and holographic perception. The platform has opened more than 300 API interfaces to meet the independent management and application innovation of multiple users and tenants.

The Company has completed more than 20 key projects, including Boao Dongyu Island Internet of Vehicles Demonstration Project, Xiongan New District Intelligent Transportation Pilot Demonstration Project, High-Tech Winter Olympics-Shougang 5G/V2X Intelligent Connected Park, Xiamen BRT5G Intelligent Connected Vehicles-Road Collaboration Project, Xining Garden Expo Park Unmanned Driving Project, Yangquan Jidong Cement 5G Intelligent Mine Unmanned Driving Project, Zibo High-tech Zone Eastern Mountain Park Intelligent Connected Project. China Unicom took the lead in building a national leading “5G + Internet of Vehicles” application demonstration base in Tianjin Haihe Education Park, Beijing Yizhuang Park and other places.

Focusing on key areas such as water conservancy and environmental protection, China Unicom created a number of solutions such as Unicom Smart Water Conservancy and Smart Ecological Environment. It promoted the modernisation of ecological environment governance system and governance capabilities with digital technology integration and innovation, and empowered the construction of China’s modernisation that promotes the harmonious coexistence of human and nature.

• With the advantages of 5G and cloud-network capabilities, the Company built a diversified and integrated water conservancy perception network, provided secure and reliable data and computing power support for smart water conservancy construction, and served the construction of digital twin water network, digital twin watershed and digital twin engineering, so as to promote the construction of the “2+N” smart water conservancy business application system, thus promoting the high-quality development of water conservancy in the new stage.
• By comprehensively utilising its core capabilities such as 5G, Unicom Cloud, Big Data, AI and blockchain, the Company built a smart ecological management platform to support scientific decision-making, systematic management, precise pollution control and convenient services in areas such as water environment, atmospheric environment, pollution sources and hazardous solid waste. This promoted digital empowerment to improve the quality of ecological environment.

On 15 December 2022, the Department of Resources Development of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced 10 elderly-friendly smart tourism demonstration cases. The “Travel Guizhou with One Code” and “Travel Xinjiang with One Mobile Phone” platforms built by China Unicom were both successfully selected, making it No.1 in the industry in terms of the number of selected cases. The One Code Tour platform has been launched in many provinces and cities across the country, becoming a new tool to promote the industrialisation and high-quality development of regional tourism. It has been highly recognised by cultural and tourism management institutions at all levels and tourists, creating a benchmark and model for the tourism industry to provide more elderly-friendly intelligent service products with digital empowerment.

With “Education Smart Brain” as the foundation of digital capabilities, China Unicom created a 5G smart education model integrating cloud, network and terminals, with dedicated efforts to promote “5G + smart education”. With 15 self-developed smart education products, the Company has built smart education applications such as 5G campus network, smart classroom, educational big data (including Education Smart Brain) and campus management platform. More than 200 benchmarks for smart education application have been established, such as the digital base of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, smart examination platform of Zhejiang Province, Harbin Institute of Technology Supercomputing Centre, and Xi’an Electronic and Technology University smart campus operation platform, to facilitate the development of education in a fair, personalised and intelligent manner.

China Unicom is committed to serving the rule of law in China with data-based, network-based and intelligent technologies. It integrated the next generation of information technologies including 5G, IoT, cloud computing, Big Data and blockchain to provide full-chain applications and services such as new legal infrastructure, political and legal data security and digital legal services for political and legal institutions and industries, and to provide the public with convenient and efficient notary services.

China Unicom focused on building a digital capability matrix for emergency response covering the whole country with new mechanisms and new models, and continued to explore and practise in the informatisation of emergency management. The Company focused on five key directions, namely emergency command and rescue, safe production, natural disaster prevention and mitigation, smart fire protection, and urban safety risk monitoring and early warning, to build China Unicom’s smart emergency products and capabilities system, and promote the deep integration of digital technology with the national needs for emergency management business and secure development of cities.

• The Company has applied satellite remote sensing, Big Data, AI and other technologies in Anhui province, Nanchong Sichuan province, Lianyungang Jiangsu province and other provinces and cities to assist the emergency management department to build disaster risk monitoring and early warning systems, emergency coordination and command systems, comprehensive application systems and supporting systems, so as to improve the capabilities of monitoring and early warning of major disasters, emergency command and rescue and comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation.
• The Company provided emergency management departments with analysis and data services in relation to population transfer, centralised resettlement and personnel return under flood and typhoon disasters.

Unicom Cloud continued to promote product breakthrough, comprehensively upgraded to the next generation of cloud computing platform, and launched three different versions of Unicom Cloud version 7.0, namely “Unicom Cloud 7.0 Industry Cloud”, “Unicom Cloud 7.0 Private Cloud” and “Unicom Cloud 7.0 Information Technology Innovation Cloud”. With the unique advantages of “security and reliability, cloud-network integration, tailored customisation, affordability and practicability, and multi-cloud collaboration”, “Unicom Cloud 7.0” has achieved four major technological breakthroughs.

Unicom Cloud drove the rapid growth of “Big Computing” and established the brand image and good reputation of “Secure Digital Intelligent Cloud”. Its public cloud recorded the highest growth rate, and the national government cloud platform constructed was rated the first by relevant institutions. The cloud-native container platform was rated as an advanced level in the first batch of cloud-network integration comprehensive capacity assessment of CAICT, and was the first operator awarded with excellent level certification by CAICT, and passed the zero-trust security certification of CAICT.

Focusing on the key direction of industrial digitalisation, China Unicom has established nine industry forces, namely equipment manufacturing, smart mining, smart steel, apparel manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, smart medical care, smart legal services, smart emergency response and smart transportation. Based on its independent capabilities such as 5G, cloud, Big Data, IoT, AI, blockchain and security, the Company independently developed 26 industry-specific products and created more than 150 industry solutions. The Company set up more industrial Internet companies in 8 provinces including Beijing, Hunan and Hainan, and together with the original 11 industrial Internet companies, basically realised the Company’s deployment in the eastern provinces of the Heihe-Tengchong Line. Taking the opportunity of establishing industrial Internet companies, the Company took part in the local digital economy construction.

China Unicom adhered to the innovation-driven development to serve the national strategy, adhered to the “two-wheel drive” of market and innovation, firmly grasped the direction of digital, network-based and intelligent transformation, and accelerated the construction of a technology engine to drive the high-quality development of the Company in the new era, becoming an essential part of the national strategic scientific and technological strength.

China Unicom further deepened the reform of the scientific and technological system, improved the scientific and technological innovation system, built an efficient scientific research and development system, optimised the scientific and technological innovation organisation, improved the efficiency of the innovation system, and strived to stimulate the innovation vitality. In 2022, the Company strengthened the basic management of scientific and technological innovation, promoted the overall management and transformation of the entire process of scientific and technological achievements, increased investment in research and development, and strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights.

• The Company established the China Unicom Science and Technology Association to build a warm home for scientific and technological workers, and 16 academicians were appointed as special consultants.
• The National Engineering Research Centre was included in the national new sequence management.
• The Company launched the second phase of platform for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, organised recommendation and training for China Unicom’s scientific and technological achievements of the incubation period, promoted the achievements of the incubation period to mature as soon as possible, and finally achieved net benefits through transformation.
• The Company attached great importance to and strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights, continuously improved the intellectual property management system related to the creation, application and protection of patents, and increased the capital and human resources investment in intellectual property rights. Both the quantity and quality of intellectual property rights have been greatly improved.

China Unicom played a leading role in the technological innovation of central state-owned enterprises, actively served as the “source” of original technologies, bravely broke through the “no man’s land” of science and technology, and accelerated the breakthrough of “bottleneck” technologies in important fields.

Undertaking major national scientific research projects

The Company continued to take the initiative to undertake national science and technology projects. In 2022, the Company was awarded 30 national science and technology projects, taking charge in 2 leading projects and 9 topics. The Company took the initiative to undertake the high-quality development project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and has been approved for 9 industrial chain collaborative innovation projects, including taking the lead in 1 project, mainly involving 5G LAN core network, industrial Internet edge intelligence, domestic artificial intelligence development and network security.

Overcoming the “bottleneck” technologies

China Unicom has organised and implemented critical technology research in order to accelerate the advantages in new generation network, 5G enhancement technology, cloud computing and Big Data.

CUBE-Net3.0 accelerated its implementation

CUBE-Net3.0, based on 5G and looking at 6G, integrates new technological elements such as cloud-native and edge computing into the development of the network, strengthens the deep integration of different technologies and industrial elements, and is a new generation of digital infrastructure based on the network. Focusing on the CUBE-Net3. 0 network architecture, the Company made breakthroughs in core technologies in transmission, IP carrier, core network, edge industrial computing network, computing network brain and credible computing power trading, and achieved a number of results.

• The key technological innovation achievements of “IPv6 +” reached the international advanced level and won the “2022 World Internet Leading Scientific and Technological Achievement” award, one of the only 15 awards worldwide.
• The innovation results of the all-optical self-intelligence network have become the first systematic innovation of the technology system for the wholeoptical business network intelligence and security in the industry.

Evolution of 5G enhancement technology

China Unicom promoted the innovation of its “CUBE-FLEX AIR” technology system and solutions, and led a number of major special projects, such as “Constructing Reliable 5G Communication and Advanced Network Demonstration in Complex and Extreme Conditions” and “CUBE-FLEX AIR Technology System, Key Technology Research and Application Demonstration for 5.5G Evolution”. The Company formulated the introduction strategy and deployment plan of 5GC enhancement capability to support the Group to promote the introduction of some high-priority 5GC enhancement capability and continued to build the competitive advantages of China Unicom’s 5GC network differentiation capability, so as to facilitate the evolution of the Group’s 5G network and the implementation of the 5G Application Sailing Action Plan.

Breakthrough in Big Computing technology

Through key technology research for computing-network integration, the Company designed and developed computing-network integration and scheduling technology, wide-area distributed storage technology and cloud-based network hardware unloading technology, and launched cloud products that support computing-network integration and scheduling, ultra-high performance ECS products, and Unicom Cloud smart operation and maintenance platform. The Company has mastered the computing-network integration and scheduling technology and wide-area distributed storage technology based on latency circle or geographical location, solved the problem of terminal access to distributed services or data in the vicinity, and realised the first breakthrough of virtualised cloud products and cloud-native products that support latency circle scheduling in the industry.

Increasing influence of Big Data

The Company carried out research on key technologies for trusted data resource space, and overcame the cutting-edge key technologies in the fields of massive data intelligent governance and services, multi-party data mutual trust and exchange, and security monitoring. It solved the data transfer service problems among data value parties, regulators, operators and auditors, made up for the shortcomings of data sharing security, realised the maximum value of the whole life cycle of data generation, transmission, transformation and creation, and improved the technical capabilities and influence of the big data industry.

Tracking the trend of forward-looking technology evolution

Quantum information technology research

China Unicom actively participated in the standardisation of quantum information in domestic and foreign standard organisations, served as the deputy leader of Quantum Communication Special Task Force (ST7) of China Communications Standards Association, and participated in scientific and technological innovation research organisations such as Quantum Internet Industry Alliance (QIIA) and Quantum Technology Industry-University-Research Innovation Alliance (QIC), to promote the development and application of quantum technology. The Company focused on the research on the practical application of quantum communication, proposed a low-cost end-to-end physical layer hybrid networking architecture, promoted the implementation of the quantum key cloud platform in new business applications, continued to follow up the miniaturisation development of the quantum key distribution (QKD) equipment, carried out the development of equipment integrating quantum and classic communication, and combined the quantum random number generator (QRNG) with the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to provide quantum secure communication solutions with high security level and low cost, thus empowering the endogenous security of the optical networks.

Exploring 6G network technology

Through the research and analysis of the vision, needs and potential challenges of 6G network, China Unicom refined the key capability requirements of 6G core network, and further carried out targeted follow-up research and capacity reserve for 6G network architecture and key technologies such as 6G distributed autonomous architecture, network endogenous intelligence, air-ground-sea integration and digital twin, laying the foundation for subsequent standardised research and application deployment of 6G. The Company promoted the pilot test of 6G technology, completed the industry’s first liquid crystal-based reconfigurable intelligent surface prototype verification and application demonstration, the world’s first integrated AAU sensing application demonstration, and the industry’s first terahertz real-time system verification and application demonstration based on real business scenarios.

Participating in the formulation of international and industry standards

In 2022, in the context of complex international environment, China Unicom overcame the impact of the pandemic and continued to strengthen cooperation with international organisations, further enhancing its influence in the international network space.

• The Company led the establishment of 35 international standards, concluded 29 projects, and was newly elected as the deputy rapporteur of an ITU-T research group.
• The Company organised and completed the development and testing of the Group-level R&D project “Open Source Custody Platform and Developer Community” and passed the project acceptance.
• The Company organised and recommended the object storage project self-developed by China Unicom’s production system, YIG, to beincluded in the “Innovation China” Open Source Innovation List 2021 of China Association for Science and Technology.

With the targets of improving efficiency, quality, perception and return, controlling risks, while strengthening innovation, China Unicom has built a new digital and intelligent operating system featuring “one-network management, integrated operation and one-screen handling”. The Company systematically promoted the digital transformation and reform throughout the entire production, operation, service, and management process for all customers, including To C, To H, To B, and To G, as well as headquarters, provinces, cities, districts, and counties. With the goal of creating ten landmark achievements, China Unicom accelerated the construction of a “one Unicom, integrated capability aggregation, and integrated operation services” feature capability matrix to significantly improve frontline work efficiency internally and enhance digital service capabilities externally. The company has received full recognition from supervisory authorities, international organisations, and industry alliances, further highlighting its role as a “toolbox” and “booster” for high-quality development.

Creating an intelligent operating system

China Unicom has built an intelligent operating system focusing on five elements, including scenes, tools, platforms, data, and processes. By empowering intelligent operations with technologies and data factors, China Unicom has comprehensively achieved its goal of “improving efficiency, quality, perception, return, and controlling risks while strengthening innovation”, which has helped the Company’s business development to continuously improve.

Consolidating digital capabilities advantage

China Unicom adhered to independent research and development to build digital intensive capabilities, The top-level planning and front-line innovation were organically combined to maximise the value of common capabilities. China Unicom developed the Unicom Intelligence Brain as the core engine for comprehensive digital transformation.

Activating the value of data factors

Data factors are the core foundation of enterprise digital transformation. China Unicom attached great importance to the construction of data infrastructure and systems, activated the vitality of data factors, empowered intelligent operations, and initially formed a new data governance ecosystem of “everyone for me, I for everyone” in China Unicom.

Further improvement of data governance system

The Company proposed to adopt the principle of “one set of system standards, one data middle platform, and one set of governance methods,” and to innovate the “seven-step work method” for data governance. The Company established a data governance working group consisting of the Group and all 31 provinces, completed full data accountability. China Unicom participated as a deputy leader in the SASAC’s data sharing project, and was awarded the “Top 10 Famous Chinese Data Management Enterprises” by the China Electronic Information Industry Federation.

Continuously enhancing data supply capacity

The Company cracked the BO bottleneck problem. The data middle platform aggregated BOM all-domain data, which doubled in scale. The Company upgraded its data development and utilisation capabilities, greatly improving the activity rate of common labels and the usage rate of high-quality labels. Compliant circulation of data sharing achieved a 20% increase in availability due to significant improvements in the quality of key scenario data.

Outstanding results in scenario-based data empowerment

The Company promoted the deep integration of Big Data and smart operations, drove the flow of data into various intelligent operation scenarios such as value operations for all customers, government and enterprise customer value operations, network resource visualisation, and management efficiency improvement, fully leveraging the multiplier effect of data.

Improving process governance efficiency

China Unicom focused on empowering smart operations, promoted the transformation of traditional processes centred on management and control to customer-centric digital processes, forced the reform and organisational optimisation of smart operation processes, and created a streamlined and efficient digital process, achieving significant improvement in front-line perception, management efficiency, and convenient business handling.

Optimising process governance system.

The Company published the “China Unicom Process Management Measures” and established a process management platform based on the closed-loop management of “management elements”. It was recognised twice as a classic case of process governance in the “Three-Year Action Briefing on State-owned Enterprise Reform” by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. The Company participated deeply in the development of industry standards for process governance maturity by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Deepening the transformation of intelligent operation process

In 2022, the Company completed the transformation of key intelligent operation scenarios, and the end-to-end operational steps for core public services from sign-up to fulfilment were streamlined by 29%, improving the perception experience. The entire process of the government-enterprise dual-line business BOM is now visible and integrated, and the centralized business operations released more than 50% of non-sales manpower for government-enterprise frontline customer managers, improving production efficiency. The process governance drove the solution of critical problems for frontline staff and customers, with a resolution rate of 87.5%, and a satisfaction rate of 88.2% for process improvements at the frontline.

Adhering to the overall national security concept, China Unicom has identified “Big Security” as its main responsibility and main business, took practical actions to fulfill its responsibility as the “national team, key force and frontline troop”, and built the “No. 1 security shield of the country, government and people” for the digital economy.

China Unicom focused on improving its core capabilities of network security and strengthening its strategic deployment. By sorting out more than 200 key points of network security technology, the Company drew a “product map of the modern industrial chain of network security (based on new digital information infrastructure)”, which has included more than 150 security products in total and 73 of which were put into commercial use. The Company launched products such as Unicom Mogong, Unicom Cloud Shield and network situation awareness, making ten milestone achievements, and building the “No. 1 security shield of the country, government and people” for the digital economy.

China Unicom actively responded to the strategic needs of national scientific and technological innovation, took the responsibility of building a Cyber Superpower and scientific and technological innovation, strived to break through the key core technologies of network security, cultivated international standards, and continued to lead the technological development direction in the field of network security. The mutual recognition of products was completed with more than 160 certificates of mutual recognition. The Company vigorously promoted the formulation of standards in the field of network security, and completed the establishment of 3 international standards and published 4 concluded projects.

China Unicom continued to strengthen the security capability reserve of new technologies and new business forms such as 5G, Big Data, AI, blockchain and industrial Internet, and strived to build the basic security capability of cloud, network, Big Data, AI, blockchain and security integration. Unicom Cloud was fully upgraded to a secure digital and intelligent cloud, and a new proprietary and controllable Unicom Cloud Operating System version 3.0 was launched, fully adapted to more than 90% of mainstream software and hardware products. Unicom Cloud Shield, developed by China Unicom, provides integrated high-quality security services for top customers such as national ministries, banks and the Internet companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises.

China Unicom strengthened the construction of network security system, promoted the development of basic network security platform, opened security scenarios, improved product systems, led the industrial ecosystem, built cloud-based and intelligent core security product capabilities, and accelerated the marketing of innovative products. The Company promoted the development of basic network security platform and completed the platform development of five capabilities, namely asset mapping, threat monitoring, threat warning, threat intelligence and attack traceability. The Company initially established a threat intelligence centre platform and its own intelligence production system to build a safe and reliable ecosystem for governance of black and grey industries. The Company cooperated with 12 enterprises to create the “Security Cloud Market” and launched 50 products.

China Unicom adheres to “bringing in” and “going out” to create a good industrial ecosystem through alliance operations, seminars and exchanges, and industrial fund operations. The Company communicated with nearly 50 enterprises and colleges in key technology research, work organisation form, construction of security laboratory, construction of industrial park, talent training and enterprise cooperation.

China Unicom unswervingly implemented the overall national security concept, thoroughly implemented the Cyber Security Law, the Data Security Law, the Personal Information Protection Law, the Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Law, the Regulation on Protecting the Security of Critical Information Infrastructure and other laws and regulations, in order to better coordinate development and security, and build a proactive defence and joint defense and control system that is routine, practical, centralised and intelligent. It comprehensively improved the comprehensive support capability of network security, built a defence line for network and information security in the digital era, effectively protected the sovereignty, security and development interests of cyber space, and served as a main “escort” for the protection of China’s modern network security.

China Unicom continued to build a network security protection system for the entire network. The Company established a network and information security operation centre and an anti-fraud command centre (SOC), which efficiently linked with 52 branch command centres, operated 12 security scenarios on a regular basis, carried out emergency command and dispatch, and implemented 7×24 hours on duty. In 2022, the Company carried out 10 attack and defence drills, 5 whole-process emergency drills and 37 phishing emails drills, and continuously improved the timely handling rate of security incidents.

China Unicom thoroughly implemented the requirements of laws and regulations such as the Data Security Law and the Personal Information Protection Law, carried out data security management in all scenarios, innovatively created a data security operation mechanism with the characteristics of operators, and continuously improved the level of data security governance. The Company improved the data security regulation system, issued the Administrative Measures for Data Security of China Unicom, the Administrative Measures for Personal Information Protection of China Unicom, the Administrative Measures for Data Security of China Unicom’s Partners and other administrative measures and corporate standards, to clarify the requirements for data security protection, personal information rights protection and data life cycle protection, laying a foundation for the construction of a compliance management system for data security and personal information protection.

Continuous efforts were made to strengthen centralised security capabilities. By fully leveraging its advantages in IT and data centralisation, China Unicom accelerated the nationwide coverage of eight data security capabilities, including data encryption, data desensitisation and data traceability. The Company has built a nationwide sensitive data monitoring and operation mechanism covering 31 provinces, established data security situational awareness capabilities, carried out in-depth operation monitoring, and achieved “early detection, early intervention and early treatment” of data security incidents, effectively protecting the security of important data and subscribers’ personal information.

Strive to improve the competency of industry data security talents. Under the guidance of MIIT, the Company solidly promoted the “Talent Strengthening Foundation” programme for the telecommunications and Internet industries, and created a set of industry standard post system, a series of professional excellent course system, a number of top-notch teachers in the industry, and a set of industry-leading knowledge management platform, covering more than 100 enterprises. The Company was recognised as one of the first talent training units under MIIT’s data security “Talent Strengthening Foundation” programme.

China Unicom protected the legitimate rights and interests of subscribers, deeply pushed forward the fight against telecom fraud. The Company strengthened source management and control, regulated operation and development, deepened the construction of two-level anti-fraud special teams, and promoted key tasks such as “card-breaking operation 2.0” and “cat-fighting” operation in an orderly manner. The Company assisted the police to break a large number of criminal bases. The Company carried out in-depth anti-fraud publicity and sent a total of 5,660 million text messages for public welfare and early warning to improve the public awareness of fraud prevention.

The Company launched products such as Mobile Manager and Unicom Assistant to provide subscribers with services such as declining calls, intelligent answering and anti-fraud business cards. The subscriber scale increased by 33% compared with the beginning of the year, effectively improving subscriber perception. The Company continued to improve its Big Data anti-fraud ability and intercepted 100 million international fraudulent calls and 300 million fraudulent messages, with a significant decrease in the number of reported cases and fraud calls, effectively safeguarding people’s property safety.

The Company strengthened the construction of public cybersecurity threat monitoring and handling capabilities, enhanced the nuisance calls management capabilities and malicious messages management and control capabilities, and realised the whole network coverage of monitoring and disposal of fraudulent calls, harassing call and spam messages. The Company improved its basic capability of monitoring, analysing and handling cybersecurity threats, thereby enhancing the security perception and experience of public customers.

Based on activities such as “National Cybersecurity Publicity Week”, “National Security Education Day” and “Anti-fraud Publicity Month”, the Company carried out customised publicity and education activities focusing on cybersecurity, data security, cloud security, 5G + industrial Internet security, personal information security, and prevention and control of telecom network fraud. The Company has carried out more than 300 activities with the theme of “entering communities, villages, campuses, enterprises and families”, and sent 5,660 million text messages for public welfare and early warning to advocate the public awareness of cybersecurity and to create a safe, healthy and civilised network environment.

The Company strictly abides by the Production Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China and other relevant laws and regulations. China Unicom adhered to the overall national security concept, implemented various important requirements, actively promoted, cooperated with and supervised related aspects of production safety, investigated and rectified various potential risks, prevented and curbed various safety production accidents, and effectively protected and safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of employees. The overall safety situation was stable, and the safety level continued to improve. While carrying out emergency rescue and disaster relief work, the Company also improved the safety awareness of frontline staffs, strengthened self-protection and effectively ensured the personal safety of emergency rescue and disaster relief personnel.

• During the year, the Company held seven national safety production work meetings, carried out large-scale inspection and rectification of safety production, promoted two rounds of safety production inspections and various special work, and successfully completed the Three-year Action Plan for Special Rectification of Safety Production. A total of more than 122,000 places were investigated, and 21,900 hidden hazards were found, with a zero-fatality rate per thousand people. There were no lost days due to work-related injuries.
• The Company revised and improved basic systems such as the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Production Safety of China Unicom and the Measures for the Administration of Fire Safety of China Unicom.
• The Company carried out the pilot construction of the “double prevention system” and “safety production standardisation and corporate safety culture”, and has established the “3 systems, 2 lists, 2 pictures, 3 notices” visualised information and 1 information platform for the double prevention system.

China Unicom actively joined hands with its partners to forge ahead with courage and perseverance. Facing the strategic opportunities brought by the simultaneous resonance of China’s modernisation and the new generation of digital revolution, China Unicom made joint efforts to win the “team competition” for the high-quality digital, network-based and intelligent development, and made joint efforts to embark on a new journey of China’s modernisation.

China Unicom insisted on taking the sincerest attitude, the most open-minded mindset and the most practical actions to further combine strength with its partners, consolidate consensus, deepen cooperation and achieve mutual success, and make new and greater contributions in the new journey of China’s modernisation.

• The Company strengthened the construction of cooperation management system, improved the classification and management of cooperation, formulated the “Administrative Measures for Strategic Cooperation of China Unicom”, promoted the upgrading of strategic cooperation with Tencent, JD.com, Alibaba, Baidu and other enterprises, and built the Company’s core competitiveness and sustainable development in a more standardised, orderly and effective manner.
• Held in Beijing, the 2022 China Unicom Global Partnership Conference with the theme of “Digital and Intelligent Connectivity for All” attracted hundreds of operators and partners from various industries around the world to participate in the conference and explore the trend of industrial reform.

China Unicom has carried out extensive cooperation with industrial chain partners to promote the rapid and high-quality development of the industry, achieve upstream and downstream coordination in the supply chain, and build a new ecosystem of “cooperation, sharing, win-win, synergy and green” Internet-oriented operation to facilitate the stable and sustainable development of the industry chain.

Joining hands with strategic investors

In 2022, China Unicom started a new round of strategic cooperation renewal with strategic investors to deepen cooperation in an all-round way, jointly contribute to the construction of Cyber Superpower, Digital China and Smart Society, jointly cultivate new advantages of innovation and development, and together win the new future of digital economy.

• The Company renewed strategic cooperation agreements with strategic investors such as Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com to lay a solid foundation for further cooperation in the future and help create a new strategic cooperation ecosystem for win-win cooperation.
• The Unicom Cloud series products launched in cooperation with strategic investors achieved large-scale development and realised a win-win development paradigm since its launch.

Cooperating with equipment suppliers

China Unicom improved the supplier management system and revised the “China Unicom Supplier Management Measures” to appropriately select, manage and guide suppliers to improve the resilience and security level of the supply chain.

• The Company relied on the whole-process data analysis capabilities of the supply chain platform to improve resource utilisation efficiency. The e-commerce platform has 84,000 registered vendors and 13,000 vendors were newly registered during 2022.
• The Company activated the intelligent supply chain open platform, conducted risk identification and analysis through the entire process of supply chain, effectively realised automatic risk identification, early warning and control, advocated honesty and trustworthiness, provided convenient services for suppliers, and settled payments as soon as possible.
• The Company developed 235 digital risk control models embedded in the supply chain platform to intercept illegal operations and effectively prevent illegal operations such as blacklisted supplier transactions and bid-rigging.
• The Company insisted on fair trading. By widely adopting the product technology qualification system and unifying supplier entry barrier, it let small-scale suppliers participate in procurement activities in a fair manner.

Cooperating with terminal suppliers

China Unicom vigorously promoted actions such as “5G-led Development” and “Broadband and Smart Home Development”, built a new terminal ecosystem with China Unicom characteristics, expanded the operational boundaries, enriched product categories, and strengthened the integrated operation of terminals and channels. The Company has cooperated with a total of 1,164 suppliers to achieve common development.

Cooperating with channel partners

China Unicom actively worked with a large number of channel partners, continued to innovate sales channels and methods, encouraged channel partners to fulfill social responsibilities, and provided customers with comprehensive quality services to achieve mutual benefit and win-win situations. In 2022, the number of China Unicom’s cooperative channel partners reached 200,000.

Cooperating with MVNOs

China Unicom assisted in deepening the reform of the telecommunications industry, supported the business service innovation of resale enterprises, continued to innovatively empower resale enterprises, and improved the business experience of resale subscribers. Through concerted efforts with resale companies, it provided more considerate, attentive and heart-warming high-quality services for the people.

• The Company took the lead in offering 5G-SA high-speed network service to the resale enterprises, and made available a total of 16 innovative products and network capabilities to expand the innovation space of the resale enterprises, helping to improve the service level of the resale enterprises and the business experience of the resale subscribers.
• The Company strengthened the information security management and control of mobile resale business, and provided management and control means for resale enterprises. In 2022, the complaint rate of harassing call and spam messages was lower than the indicators required by the regulatory authorities.

Innovation is the primary driving force for development. China Unicom extensively cooperated with various high-tech enterprises to empower all industries with digitalization, injecting new impetus into technological innovation, and promoting the coordinated development of the industry.

Strategic investment-driven cooperation

China Unicom actively carried out multi-dimensional cooperation in capital, products and projects with strategic partners such as strategic investors, central state-owned enterprises providing digital services and leading enterprises in industries. Currently, it has established 7 joint ventures with 10 strategic partners, covering areas such as digital government, ecological and environmental protection, education, culture and tourism, industrial Internet, radio and media, population Big Data and network security. Through unremitting efforts, the joint venture companies’ “specialised, niche, special and novel” capabilities and product supply capabilities have been significantly improved. The market feedback of joint ventures’ key self-developed products was good, and at the same time, they have achieved positive and effective synergistic development.

Capital investment-driven cooperation

Adhering to the principle of “diversified, specialised and market-oriented”, China Unicom continued to build an investment platform of “direct investment + fund + incubation”. Focusing on its strategy and five main responsibilities and main businesses and with the goal of consolidating, supplementing, strengthening and shaping the industrial chain, the Company actively promoted the market-oriented reform and capital operation of professional and innovative subsidiaries in the fields of Internet of Vehicles and communication engineering design, and built a group of “specialised, niche, special and novel” enterprises with innovation capabilities and competitive strength, and “made up for shortcomings and built long-term advantages” through capital.

China Unicom attached great importance to talent cultivation, promoted talent development in depth, accelerated the establishment of competitive advantages in talent resources, built a high-level talent training platform, cultivated a number of leading and high-level innovative talent teams, and continuously built new momentum and new advantages for development. At the same time, the Company fully respected and protected the basic rights and interests of each employee, and committed itself to creating a career platform for employees to demonstrate their talents and grow together with the firm.

China Unicom actively adjusted the talent structure for scientific and technological innovation, and spared no effort to attract and cultivate talents, so as to promote the healthy development of the talent structure for strategic emerging industries and stimulate the vitality of talents.

Improving the introduction mechanism

China Unicom fully grasped the new requirements of the Company’s new positioning, new strategies and new business deployments for talent recruitment, adhered to the principle of matching talent recruitment with the Company’s development needs and job capabilities, established a sound talent introduction mechanism, and vigorously implemented the talent project.

In 2022, China Unicom recruited a total of approximately 13,000 people through campus recruitment and social recruitment, which was more than “one-thousandth” of the number of new urban jobs in the country in 2022. The scale of campus recruitment increased by 25% year-on-year, realising the dual purposes of talent recruitmentand stabilising employment, and fully demonstrating the political, social and economic responsibilities of the Company.

Optimising talent team

The “418” talent project was fully implemented. The total number of innovative talents in the special zone reached more than 9,000, and nearly 50 industry experts were recruited in the past two years.

The Company continued to promote the construction of dual channels for employee development, and built a four-level professional talent pool of 20,000, including 1,024 leading and expert talents, 6,377 backbone talents and 12,370 new talents.

The Company adhered to the employee-friendly and people-oriented principle, fully considered the diversity and equal opportunities of talents, respected labour, knowledge, talents and innovation, creating an inclusive, diversified and happy working environment for employees.

Adhering to fair employment

• The Company strictly implemented the relevant provisions of the Labour Contract Law, signed labour contracts with 100% of employees, and implemented dismissal policies in accordance with relevant national requirements.
• The Company has formulated the Human Resources Risk Prevention and Control Manual to improve the recruitment supervision and inspection mechanism, clarify the list of negative behaviours and policy bottom lines, and prohibit discrimination policies on ethnicity and gender during the recruitment and promotion process and avoid child and forced labour.
• The Company attached great importance to protecting human rights and respecting personal privacy, complied with relevant laws and regulations relating to preventing child and forced labour, with no cases in relation to use of child labour, forced labour or abuse of employees.

Protecting legal rights

• The Company implemented national regulations on working hours management, implemented a paid leave system to safeguard employees’ right to leave; and ensured 100% retention of job opportunities for female employees after maternity leave to protect their legitimate rights and interests.
• The Company implemented a paid leave system for employees whose children were taking the senior high school or college entrance examination, actively responded to and promoted the implementation of parental leave and single-child care leave, and demonstrated humanistic care for employees.
• The Company has established 13,700 labour unions at all levels, with 100% employee participation in labour union.

Optimising compensation and benefits

The Company is committed to optimising labour cost allocation rules, implementing a fair and transparent salary compensation mechanism, improving the welfare system, and building a fair and harmonious compensation relationship. Regarding the performance appraisal and remuneration of the management, total salary management and other important daily matters of the Company, after full discussion by the Remuneration and Appraisal Committee, relevant opinions and resolutions were submitted to the Board of Directors to provide strong support for the scientific decision-making of the Board of Directors. Among them, the remuneration level of senior management was determined through performance appraisal according to performance appraisal measures.

• The Company regularly carried out employee rank and salary promotion, with a rank promotion rate of 18% and a salary promotion rate of 39% in 2022.
• The Company flexibly carried out mid-term and long-term incentives, and completed the grant of 800,000,000 second-phase Restricted Shares of A share company in total for 7,700 persons.
• All units followed the relevant national and corporate policies and regulations to establish enterprise annuity system for employees, and paid social insurance premiums and housing provident funds in full and on time.
• The Company carried out occupational health care and established a “three-inone” assistance system of critical illness insurance, mutual aid fund and supplementary medical care. 11 health enterprise construction cases of China Unicom were selected as distinctive health cases by labour unions at different levels of the China Association of Communication Enterprises, and won the award of “2022 Healthy China Action Innovation Practice (Health Responsibility) Case” granted by People.cn.

China Unicom continued to promote the construction of talent teams, encouraged employees to provide advice and suggestions, strengthened employee training, continued to improve the talent and value of the workforce, and increased the care for employees, which significantly enhanced the happiness and pride of employees.

Improving democratic management

China Unicom established a robust democratic management system based on the staff representative assembly, coordinated and promoted the three-in-one democratic corporate management comprising “staff representative assembly, open corporate affairs, and employees’ advice and suggestions”. It guaranteed the right to know, participate, express, and supervise of employees at all levels, and encouraged employees to contribute their wisdom to the development of the Company.

• The Company kept smooth channels for reasonable suggestions, established a quick response mechanism for employees’ demands and feedback through various reasonable suggestions activities such as online “General Manager Online”, to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of employees. Throughout the year, the Company carried out more than 300 “General Manager Online” meetings, collected more than 6,000 reasonable suggestions, and reached a problem-solving rate of over 90%.
• Throughout the year, the Company held about 700 staff representative assemblies at all levels. Over 300 items of various matters were discussed at the provincial company level, over 3,000 items were discussed at subsidiaries and municipal companies, and there were nearly 10,000 items of various proposals.
• 335,000 employees participated in the employee satisfaction survey throughout the year. The Company continuously improve employee satisfaction in response to employees’ demands.
• The Company carried out in-depth class activities with the theme of “Know Your Account in Mind”. The Company established a joint discussion and management mechanism to stimulate the vitality of front-line units. During the year, the Company organised more than 50,000 “Know Your Account in Mind” themed class activities, which greatly stimulated the endogenous motivation of front-line employees and effectively protected employees’ right to know, participate and supervise.

Supporting capacity development

Strengthening the construction of training system. The Company issued the “China Unicom 2022 Key Training Plan of the Group” to form a three-category training plan for management, profession and Party building based on the principle of full coverage of key groups.

Optimising the professional capability standard system. According to the professional capability certification standards, the Company completed the update and iteration of 8 capability standards. It conducted several professional capability certification examinations, with more than 200,000 participants and 92,536 professional talents passing the certification.

Building a skills training platform

In 2022, the labour and skills competition of China Unicom comprehensively focused on the “1 + 9 + 3” strategic planning system. It anchored the five main channels, built a multi-level, multi-professional and high-coverage group-level labour and skills competition system, and united and mobilised employees to improve their skills and make achievements in the high-quality development of the Company.

• Adhering to innovation-driven development, innovation-related competitions accounted for more than 30% of the total competition, with a total of 180,000 employees participating, generating more than 30,000 innovative solutions.
• Through the competition, the Company improved quality and efficiency, promoted transformation and development, and saved operating costs of RMB110 million.
• The Company signed more than 15,000 projects from government and enterprise innovation solutions and self-developed product promotion labour competitions, 101 self-developed products recorded revenue of more than RMB10 million. Total contract value exceeded RMB10 billion, which was more than the sum of the past three years.

China Unicom attached great importance to the physical and mental health of employees, strived to create an inclusive, diversified and happy workplace environment with work-life balance, and actively organised various cultural and sports activities for employees, helped employees in difficulties, so as to help them live a healthy life and work happily.

Safeguarding physical and mental health

• For three consecutive years, the Company organised the “Mental Health Month” and offer EAP to the front line. The total number of visits of the “Mental Health Month” activities reached over 1.1 million person-times, with more than 77,000 participants in knowledge competitions, and more than 32,000 participants in mental health examinations.
• The Company set up a total of 140 “psychological station” across the country to carry out rich team counselling, group salons, psychological counselling, pressure reduction massage and other activities.

Supporting pandemic prevention and control

In the face of frequent outbreaks across the country and the severe and complex pandemic situation, the China Unicom Group’s labour union allocated special funds to areas severely affected by the pandemic to help prevent and control the pandemic.

Carrying out cultural and sports activities

Labour unions at all levels carried out online and offline cultural and sports activities, promoted the construction of dance rooms, gyms, yoga rooms and other places of activity, so as to promote national fitness and enrich the cultural life of employees after work.

Protecting the rights and interests of female employees

• The Company actively provided special health examinations for female employees, promoted the screening of “two cancers”, and provided exclusive care and health guidance services for female employees. The labour unions at all levels generally carried out the “March 8 Festival” activities to enhance the happiness and sense of achievement of female employees.
• The labour unions at all levels have been providing childcare services for employees for many years They actively implemented maternity policies and constructed breastfeeding rooms to solve the worries of female employees.

Helping employees in difficulties

The Company established files for employees in difficulties, with a separate file and policy for each employee. The Company improved the files and administrative measures for filing of employees in difficulties and support and assistance, and carried out and assistance work for employees in difficulties according to the files, so as to help them overcome their difficulties. Care and condolences were given to flood, drought and other disaster-stricken units in a timely manner.

The improvement of people’s livelihood is crucial to the overall situation of China’s modern development. China Unicom regarded improving the well-being of the people and promoting their all-round development as the starting point and goal of digital development. The Company continuously enriched the connotation of its communication products and services, actively conveyed the warmth of public welfare, promoted employment, safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of employees, and continuously enhanced the sense of gain, happiness and security of the people.

China Unicom adhered to the people-oriented development goal, focused on the “1 + 9 + 3” strategic planning system, and deeply implemented the action plan for high-quality services to promote high-quality development with high-quality services. Through multi-angle and three-dimensional publicity, the Company told the service stories of China Unicom, improved the brand reputation of the Company, consolidated the foundation of service, and shaped the reputation of high-quality service.

Building a Quality Service System

China Unicom released the “White Paper on High-quality Services” on 27 June 2022, and actively built an integrated dual circulation operation synergy system to continue creating high-quality services that satisfy existing users and attract new customers.

• Strengthening the “1+4+31” integrated dual circulation operation synergy system. The Company built a 1+4+31 collaborative operation mechanism. Its promoted the coordination among four regional call centres, one upgrade investment centre and 31 provinces. The regional call centres and the centralised provinces deeply collaborated in terms of knowledge operation, work order operation, training, service quality, etc. It systematically connected to support provincial branches, coordinated communication, efficiently promoted the implementation of related work, and did a good job in service support of provincial branches.
• During the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games (hereinafter referred to as the Winter Olympics), a service team for the Winter Olympics was set up to provide communication business consultation, handling and problem-solving for customers involved in the Winter Olympics. A total of 12,300 person-times were served.
• Building a closed-loop management process for customer satisfaction. The Company built a contact-based evaluation system for hotline services, and the satisfaction evaluation results were monitored in real time to achieve re-activation of dissatisfied calls. The Company promoted the evaluation of all work order deliveries, and re-activated the outstanding unsatisfactory work orders to improve customer satisfaction.
• Newly added 62 self-service scenarios and 71 direct handling interfaces to enable direct and quick handling of simple business through self-service.

Providing Quality Service Experience

China Unicom organised “100% attention for high satisfaction – I do practical things for the public” special activities, and continuously improved the customer service experience monitoring system and mechanism with specific measures. The Company enhanced self-service capabilities, and provided customers with all-round quality services to improve customer service experience.

• The Company established a customer service experience monitoring system for all customers and all businesses, comprehensively understood customer problems, realised all-round supervision and quick rectification, and achieved a leap in industry status. Customer satisfaction reached 98.4%.
• The Company quickly established a production process that focuses on short-chain solutions. In order to solve various problems encountered by users in the communication travel cards, the customer service hotline, as one of the touch points of customer service, cooperated with professional lines to establish a short-chain processing workflow, and effectively solved the “pain point” problems of subscribers. A total of 3.16 million travel card queries were received.
• Introducing a customer-oriented service supervision mechanism. The Company established a more stringent indicator evaluation system, introduced internal and external service supervision mechanisms from the perspective of customers, realised the supervision of hotline from the perspectives of each channel, with quick rectification to provide customers with high-quality services.
• Self-service hotline service quality inspection. The Company carried out quality inspection of hotline services targeted at identifying errors, failures of solutions and repeated calls in self-service hotline calls. The Company optimised 127 self-service processes in a targeted manner to improve the efficiency of problem solving and enable satisfactory self-service of simple business.

Improving problem solving skills

China Unicom continued to improve its problem-solving ability, provided solutions to address customers’ concerns, timely and effectively solved problems for customers, built a responsible corporate image, and established a good business reputation.

• The Company continued to improve the integrated operation capability, established the mechanism of “front-line whistleblowing and department reporting” and coordinated the front and back offices of all professional lines to respond to each customer’s problem in a timely manner and improve customer satisfaction.
• The Company continued to promote the digital closed-loop management and control, transparent display, and integrated platform carrying of all customer problems. Customer perception improved significantly, and the valid complaint rate by the MIIT reached a new record low. The effectiveness of the service was significantly improved, and the satisfaction rate of customer problem solving increased significantly by 22 percentage points.
• Based on business needs, the Company continuously optimised the perception assessment of product usage, and deeply understood the subscriber experience from five aspects, namely tariff & package content, publicity, handling, notification and use. In 2022, the Company continued to carry out subscriber consultations on product usage, cumulative covering 105 million person-times.

Conducting various service activities

China Unicom actively cooperated with various industries to provide diversified service support and achieved high-quality reputation promotion across the industry.

• Focusing on the unified topic of “Attentive Service of China Unicom for You”, the Company combined provincial and group-level publicity with special features, national linkage and all-round publicity to form a systematic and rhythm-based three-dimensional publicity voice. The cumulative publicity volume in China reached 5.14 billion times, and nearly 20,000 reports were released by major media such as Xinhuanet, People.cn and SASAC News, effectively driving the positive improvement of the Company’s reputation.
• The Company made every effort to support the publicity and service of the Winter Olympics to polish the corporate brand of supporting the Winter Olympics. In terms of services support, the Company set up a special service support team for the Winter Olympics during the events, strengthened the rapid handling of complaints, and achieved smooth hot line services and efficient resolution of complaints during the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games. In terms of publicity and organisation, the Company coordinated the promotion of the Winter Olympics to its 400 million customers, completed 238 original works, and achieved a cumulative publicity view of 780 million, fully demonstrating China Unicom’s contribution to the Smart Winter Olympics powered by 5G, and enhancing the Company’s brand reputation in Winter Olympics service.

Carrying out activities to help the disabled and the elderly

China Unicom continued to increase its humanistic care for people with special needs, providing all-round and caring services for the elderly and disabled people, and helped to create a warm and harmonious society.

In 2022, China Unicom benefited more than 680,000 disabled subscribers, with an accumulated reduction and exemption of communication fees exceeding RMB240 million. The Company benefited more than 5.4 million elderly subscribers, with an accumulated reduction and exemption of communication fees exceeding RMB270 million. The 10010 hotline for customers over 65 years old served a total of 66.8 million times and served more than 18.2 million person-times. China Unicom’s business outlets set up 4,969 smart elderly service experience centres, and organised 50,000 elderly-friendly activities, serving 1,011,000 person-times, which was praised by the community.

On May 17, 2022, China Unicom officially upgraded and released the “Silver-age Exclusive” service plan to the society. With warm service, the Company joined hands with elderly customers to cross the “digital divide” and experience smart living, so that they can have more sense of gain, happiness and security in the digital age.

In 2022, the overall satisfaction rating of the Company by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed an improvement trend throughout the year

As a compassionate, responsible, and courageous communications enterprise, China Unicom has always insisted on connecting with science and technology in good faith, delivering warmth through practice, and actively participating in the development of social welfare undertakings. The Company has deepened its focus on the fields of concept inheritance, social livelihood, environmental protection, epidemic safety, etc. As always, China Unicom takes practical actions to fulfil national requirements, fulfil social responsibilities, give back to the people’s trust, and contribute to the construction of a warm and harmonious society.

Building a Youth Volunteer Team

China Unicom always attaches great importance to the inheritance and development of the public welfare concept among the youth. In 2022, China Unicom strengthened its efforts in educating and cultivating young people, actively encouraged them to participate in social welfare undertakings and contribute to the creation of a warm society.

China Unicom continued to vigorously promote the youth volunteer service action. Up to now, there are 943 youth volunteer organisations, 43,237 young volunteers, 6,398 volunteer service activities, and 49,918 person-times of service, including 5,909 in rural revitalisation, 6,805 inpoverty alleviation, 17,803 in public welfare and environmental protection, and 19,401 in other volunteer activities. A young volunteer team with enthusiasm, courage, dedication, and goodwill has been successfully built.

Addressing the needs of society for livelihood

China Unicom continued to take improving people’s livelihood and well-being as its own responsibility, and continued to provide caring assistance to diverse groups such as the elderly, left-behind children, labourers and young students, spreading the warmth of China Unicom in all aspects and lighting up the hope of the society with the power of goodwill.

• Demonstrating “filial piety”, the Company carried out elderly care services through public welfare volunteer activities, and effectively improving the sense of achievement and happiness of the elderly from three aspects: providing services, knowledge education and companionship.
• Being concerned about childcare, the Company protected the growth of left-behind children with the aim of cultivating a healthy and happy physical condition.
• Understanding the “people’s minds”, the Company showed warmth to the people working hard in all walks of life on the premise of equality, respect and empathy.
• With goodwill and to help the self-development of young people, the Company provide a social platform for college students.

Deep Focusing on Environmental Protection

China Unicom adhered to the concept of sustainable development and paid close attention to environmental protection for a long time. Through various public welfare volunteer projects, the Company assisted in ecological protection and restoration, strived to create a green and clean ecological environment for the society, and to explicitly acknowledge and fulfill its corporate social responsibility.

Relieving the difficulties faced by micro, small and medium enterprises

China Unicom actively responded to the call of the state and undertook the responsibility of a central state-owned enterprise. Through three major measures, namely rent reduction and exemption for micro, small and medium enterprises, settlement of outstanding accounts due to private enterprises and financing cost reduction for micro, small and medium enterprises, the Company spared no efforts to help micro, small and medium enterprises address difficulties and provided strong support for the prosperity and development of the socialist market economy. As at the end of December2022, the Group’s accumulated rent concessions amounted to RMB293 million (RMB199 million reduction and exemption in medium-and high-risk areas in the pandemic), involving 6,910 small and micro enterprises and individual business owners in the service industry.

2022 was a crucial year for China to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and effectively connect with rural revitalisation. The comprehensive promotion of rural revitalisation is a strategic deployment for building a modern socialist country in an all-round way and an objective requirement for the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. China Unicom insisted on making key contributions to rural revitalisation with the responsibility of “national team, key force and frontline troop”, regarded digital village as the digital initiative to empower rural revitalisation, and facilitated rural production mode upgrade, governance model innovation and lifestyle improvement in a multi-measure, all-round and in-depth manner, so as to promote the unity of economic and social benefits, and create sustainable development and assistance models.

Shouldering responsibility and actively implementing the rural revitalisation strategy

China Unicom implemented the rural revitalisation policy with practical actions. On the basis of the original “Four New Projects”, China Unicom made innovative breakthroughs to keep up with the times, and proposed to fully implement the “Ten Actions” and deepen the “Five New Projects”. In accordance with the requirements of the initiatives, the Group clearly defined the overall goals and roadmap, and promoted the development of digital village construction in an orderly manner in five aspects, including infrastructure construction, digital tool base and industrial co-construction ecosystem, so as to write a new chapter of comprehensive rural revitalisation in the new era.

• The Company issued the “Key Points of China Unicom’s Work in Supporting Rural Revitalization in 2022” to plan and deploy the work in four aspects, namely the promotion of rural communication infrastructure construction, agricultural transformation and upgrading, digital application promotion, and a new marketing service model, ensuring clear responsibilities and implementation.
• The Company held the 2022 Conference on Promoting Rural Revitalization to discuss the new achievements of digital rural construction and planned a new chapter of rural revitalisation with practical actions.
• A total of 1552 cadres were selected in 5 counties, 64 towns and 1152 villages for designated assistance by the Group.
• The actual poverty alleviation funds invested amounted to RMB229 million.

In 2022, China Unicom’s efforts in rural revitalisation have been widely recognised. China Unicom’s targeted assistance work has been rated as “good” for four consecutive years by the Central Rural Work Leading Group, ranking top among central state-owned enterprises. At the same time, the “China Unicom Digital Village Service Cloud Platform to Support Information Consumption + Rural Revitalisation” project was selected as one of the 2022 New Information Consumption Demonstration Projects by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The Company received a letter of thanks from the MIIT and the Information Consumption Promotion Alliance of China for organising “information consumption supporting rural revitalization” activities.

Benefiting farmers with digital means and paving the way for smart villages

The construction of modern rural infrastructure is an important material foundation for improving rural productivity and developing modern agriculture. As the national team in the operation and service of digital information infrastructure, China Unicom continued to build a digital village base, consolidating the foundation for rural revitalisation and development, and paving an information expressway for benefiting farmers with digital means and for smart villages.

Accelerating the construction of rural digital information infrastructure

The Company carried out the construction of “Digital Village” in more than 3,500 districts and counties in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country, serving more than 230,000 administrative villages in total. The mobile network coverage of administrative villages nationwide was 95%, and the 4G coverage was 94.3%. After the 900MHz was re-farmed to 5G, the coverage of 5G administrative villages exceeded 70%, the national broadband network covered 26,000 towns and 312,000 administrative villages.

The Company carried out over 50,000 activities to care for the elderly and helped over 1.5 million villagers upgrade their digital intelligent terminals. A wide range of mobile phone training activities for farmers were carried out nationwide to empower 2.3 million people to improve their digital skills.

Optimising the construction of digital village public service platform

Relying on the advantages of its 5G digital infrastructure, China Unicom has independently developed the “Unicom Digital Village” platform, which has the features of full system, modularisation, rapid deployment and diversification, and has become a powerful tool for the government, the village committee and the villagers. By the end of December 2022, the “Unicom Digital Village” platform has covered 253,000 administrative villages and served over 22 million villagers.

Helping farmers get rich through industries and consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation

Industrial revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation. On the way of promoting agriculture and rural development with science and technology, China Unicom relied on the distinctive resources of agriculture and rural areas to actively carry out in-depth cooperation with ecosystem partners in live broadcast, education, tourism, media, terminals and finance. The Company cooperated with the government, industry associations and enterprises to promote the penetration of social resources to rural areas, and promote digital agriculture and digital commerce to boost agriculture.

In 2022, the Company implemented more than 500 digital agriculture and rural ecological service projects nationwide, vigorously supported the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and promoted the upgrading of the entire industrial chain in rural areas.

Since 2016, the Company has invested a total of RMB760 million in poverty alleviation funds and specially supported more than 3,000 digital industrial projects.

China Unicom actively explored combining its own business capabilities with rural revitalisation, sharing the development results and contributing to common prosperity while revitalising villages and benefiting farmers. For example, the Company combined digital village construction and digital technology to enable online sales of agricultural products, helping to cultivate a number of unique and high-quality agricultural product brands. For another example, China Unicom and village collectives jointly established the “Communication Cooperatives”. Through the model of “digital village platform + village collective economic business cooperation”, the digital villages were built and operated with cloud-network integration. By introducing the communication cooperatives as a project to strengthen the collective economy, the interests of the village collectives were expanded through the combination of “resource co-construction + terminal financing instalment”.

Building distinctive industrial advantages