China Unicom said its revenues this year will be chiefly boosted by private 5G and cloud segments
China Unicom, the smallest Chinese mobile operator in the country by subscribers, deployed a total of 7,441 private 5G networks for businesses by the end of last month, the telco said in a statement.
This number shows an increase of 138% year-on-year.
The Chinese carrier also said that IoT terminal connections grew by 27% to 474.4 million.at end-October.
In August, China Unicom had forecast double-digit profit growth for 2023, mainly driven by gains in its private 5G and cloud businesses.
Also, the operator added 47 million 5G package subscribers during the month to close October with 252 million.
China Unicom’s net profit for the first nine months of 2023 climbed 10.1% to CNY17.2 billion ($2.4 billion), while the carrier’s mobile service revenue grew 2.6% to CNY130.7 billion.
Chinese operators reported having deployed a total of 3.22 million 5G base stations by the end of October, accounting for 28.1%of all its mobile base stations as part of the country’s efforts to accelerate the digital transformation of the economy.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that state-run carriers China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom collectively reached a total of 754 million 5G mobile users by the end of October.
The ministry’s data also showed that the domestic telecommunication industry had recorded combined revenue of approximately CNY1.4 trillion in the first ten months of the year. surging 6.9% year on year.
China is forecasted to reach 1 billion 5G subscribers by 2025, while the number of 5G users by 2030 is expected to reach 1.6 billion, according to a previous report by the GSMA.
5G will overtake 4G in 2024 to become the dominant mobile technology in China, according to the report. “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.
According to the report, 5G will account for 88% of mobile connections in China by 2030, while 4G technology will account for the remaining 12%. By the end of this year, 5G will represent nearly 45% while 4G will account for nearly 55% of total mobile connections in the country.
Operators in China will spend $291 billion on their networks during 2023–2030, with most on 5G Following extensive 5G network buildout over the last few years, resulting in record capex intensity in China, overall capex will begin to trend downwards in the coming years as operators turn their focus to generating returns on investment,” the report adds.
