China Telecom Corp. (CHA) Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Xiaochu said Thursday the company plans to distribute a final dividend after it issues its full-year results.

The executive, speaking at a news conference on the company's first-half results, didn't elaborate on the final dividend.

Earlier Thursday, China's largest fixed-line operator by subscribers said its net profit for the six months ended June 30 fell 29% to CNY9.00 billion, from CNY12.63 billion in the same period last year, because of higher network costs and marketing expenses for its newly acquired mobile operation.

Wang said China Telecom is still in talks with Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) to offer Blackberry devices in China. It is also engaged with Palm Inc. (PALM) to offer Palm's handsets in the mainland.

China Telecom had said in June it was in "preliminary contacts" with Research In Motion to offer Blackberry devices.

Wang said China Telecom aims to have its mobile operations become profitable by 2011. It expects its margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to stabilize by the end of this year.

In the first half, the company's Ebitda margin narrowed to 42.6% from 50.1% a year earlier.

-By Lorraine Luk, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; lorraine.luk@dowjones.com