The GSMA report also forecasts that licensed cellular IoT connections in China will reach 3.6 billion by 2030
China ended 2022 with 1.84 billion cellular IoT connections in 2022, a GSMA report showed, citing figures from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
According to the “Mobile Economy Report China 2023”, that record figure makes China the first major economy to record more cellular IoT connections than mobile users.
NB-IoT accounts for the largest proportion of IoT connections in China, GSMA said.
According to the MIIT, water meters, gas meters, smoke detectors and tracking each account for over 10 million connections. Agriculture, streetlights and five other use cases have crossed the 1 million mark, while public services, connected vehicles, smart retail and smart home applications dominate end-user services, with a combined 1.4 billion connections.
The GSMA report forecasts that licensed cellular IoT connections in China will reach 3.6 billion by 2030. China will account for 67% of the global total in 2030, while Europe and the U.S. will jointly account for 21%.
The GSMA report also noted that the MIIT had launched the “Set Sail” Action Plan for 5G applications in 2021, which outlined targets for China’s 5G industry to reach by the end of 2023. This includes a goal of 3,000 dedicated 5G network deployments and a target for large industrial enterprises to reach a 5G penetration of 35%. The report showed that operators in China have made strong progress in this field, with data points including:
-China Mobile reported a 40% increase in digital transformation revenue in H1 2022, underpinned by growth in 5G solutions for vertical sectors, mobile cloud and smart home services. The operator has signed agreements for more than 11,000 5G commercial projects, representing a contract value of CNY16 billion ($2.4 billion).
-China Telecom reported that its industrial digitalization business, which includes cloud, data center and smart solutions, grew 19% year-on-year to CNY59 billion in H1 2022. The new contract value for 5G B2B projects has grown 80% year-on-year, as the operator focuses on scalable and replicable use cases in sectors such as 5G city, healthcare and manufacturing.
-China Unicom had reported its enterprise revenue reached CNY37 billion for the first six months of 2022, representing a year-on-year increase of 32%. 5G industry applications accounted for more than 10% of total enterprise revenues for the operator, driven by strong uptake of 5G virtual private networks.
“Dedicated 5G networks can be deployed across a range of vertical industries. Manufacturers have been among those setting the pace in China, with factories and warehouses a natural setting for private wireless networks. This reflects the need in these locations for precision operations and data analytics that run across a densely linked network of localized assets. There has also been strong demand from the mining sector, which often requires connectivity in rural and hard-to-reach areas,” the study reads. “Multiple use cases involving dedicated 5G are currently in testing or live operation in China. These include mobile robotics for site inspections, AGVs, drones and 4K video streaming – for safety and security applications.”
