The net profits of China Unicom, the country's second-largest telecom operator, rose 73.7 percent in the first quarter from a year of 2014 earlier to 1.1 billion yuan (180.33 million U.S. dollars), new financial results have showed.

Its business revenues rose 8.4 percent year on year to 78.82 billion yuan in the first quarter, China Unicom said in a report filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Earnings per share stood at 0.0518 yuan, up 73.7 percent year on year.

The major mobile businesses under China Unicom rose 15.6 percent year on year to 42 billion yuan in the first quarter. The company's new mobile phone users hit 8.71 million between the start of January and the end of March, with its total number of mobile users reaching 289.69 million.

Revenues from fixed-line services grew 5.8 percent year on year to 23.66 billion yuan in the first quarter.