The government of China said that emerging sectors, such as Internet data centers, cloud computing and the IoT, saw their revenues expand by 22.3% year-on-year
The telecommunication industry experienced a robust expansion in China in the first four months of this year, chiefly due to the growth in emerging businesses, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported, citing official data.
According to the report, the combined business revenues of companies operating in the Chinese telecommunications sector totaled CNY 569.9 billion ($80.5 billion), up 7.2% year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Of the total, emerging sectors, such as Internet data centers, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), saw their revenues expand by 22.3% year-on-year, driving the revenue of the telecom business up by 4.3 percentage points, the ministry said.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also reported that China had over 2.73 million 5G base stations by the end of April. According to the ministry, these 5G base stations accounted for 24.5% of the country’s overall mobile base stations.
The Chinese government previously forecasted that the number of 5G base stations in China will hit 2.9 million at the end of 2023.
The Chinese government also revealed that the number of cities in China with the capability to offer gigabit 5G and optical fiber services reached 110 by the end of October 2022. In these cities, over 80% of the large public hospitals, key universities, major cultural and tourist sites, airports, and key roads have access to 5G network.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, ended April with a total of 698.8 million 5G subscribers. Rival operators China Telecom and China Unicom ended April with 287.2 million and 227 million 5G subscribers respectively.
According to a recent GSMA report, dubbed “The Mobile Economy China 2023”, 5G technology will add $290 billion to the Chinese economy in 2030, with benefits spread across industries.
The report noted that mainland China is the largest 5G market in the world, accounting for more than 60% of global 5G connections at the end of 2022.
5G will overtake 4G in 2024 to become the dominant mobile technology in China, according to the GSMA. “4G and 5G dominance in China means legacy networks are now being phased out. While most users have been migrated to 4G and 5G, legacy networks continue to support various IoT services. However, some estimates suggest that legacy networks could be almost entirely shut down in China by 2025,” the study reads.
