China Tower said it added a total of 17,000 new towers last year
China Tower ended 2022 with a total of 2.05 million towers under management, after a new addition of 17,000 sites during the full year. In a release, the company said that total tower tenants rose by 102,000 in the year to 3.36 million, pushing the average number per tower from 1.62 as of the end of 2021 to 1.65 at end-2022.
The Chinese company also said it completed approximately 745,000 5G base stations during 2022.
China Tower’s net profit in 2022 climbed 19.9% year-on-year to CNY8.78 billion ($1.26 billion), while operating revenue grew 6.5% to CNY92.17 billion.
Tower business revenue grew by 1.8% to CNY77.2 billion, while indoor distributed antenna system (DAS) sales increased by 34.3% to CNY5.82 billion.
China Tower’s DAS business covered buildings with a cumulative area of 7.39 million square meters as of the end of December, up by 48.1% compared to end-2021.
Zhang Zhiyong, chairman of China Tower said: “Looking ahead, we will remain focused on grasping the opportunities brought by the development of 5G new infrastructure, the digital economy, and the green-oriented transition of energy.”
Chinese operators had deployed a total of 2.29 million 5G base stations nationwide as of the end of November, according to the latest available data from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This figure represents an increase of 862,000 compared to the end of 2021 and accounts for 21.1% of all mobile base stations in the country.
Chinese operators recorded a net gain of 16.53 million 5G subscribers in January, according to the operators’ latest available statistics.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, added a total of 8.46 million 5G subscribers during the first month of the year. The carrier said it ended last month with 622.47 million 5G subscribers. China Mobile added a total of 227.2 million subscribers in the 5G segment during 2022.
Meanwhile, China Telecom added 5 million 5G subscribers last month to take its total 5G subscribers base to 273 million. During 2022, the telco added a total of 80.16 million 5G subscribers.
Rival operator China Unicom said it added a total of 3.07 million 5G subscribers during last month. The carrier ended January with 215.8 million 5G subscribers. China Unicom added over 42 million subscribers in the 5G segment during 2022.
