China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, has already deployed over 560,000 5G base stations across China, local press reported, citing the operator’s General Manager Dong Xin.
The operator aims to cover all rural towns across the country with its 5G network by the end of 2022, according to Chinese press reports.
China Mobile also aims to expand 5G industry applications in 18 key vertical sectors, including the industrial internet, President Yang Jie said at a company event.
“We will work hard to ensure continuous 5G coverage in rural towns across China by the end of 2022, as well as effective coverage in important parks and developed rural villages by then,” Yang said.
The Chinese carrier will boost efforts to promote 5G applications and services like cloud games, augmented and virtual reality, and explore financial technology services like insurance and credit, according to the reports.
China Mobile also said it has led 134 5G international standards projects, and has obtained 3,300 5G patents.
According to the reports, the telco ended October with 360 million subscribers in the 5G segment.
China Mobile had added a total of 27.08 million 5G subscribers in September. The carrier had previously said it ended September with 331.22 million 5G subscribers, compared to 113.59 million 5G customers in September 2020.
China Mobile has added a total of 166.22 million subscribers in the 5G segment since the beginning of the year.
The operator’s overall mobile subscriber base at the end of September reached 955.70 million, up compared to 951.10 million in the previous month.
Chinese operators have already deployed over 1 million 5G base stations across the country, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
5G base stations installed by local carriers have already covered all prefecture-level cities, more than 95% of counties and 35% of towns across China.
The government also reported that 5G base installed in China accounts for 80% of total base stations deployed at a global level.
The ministry said that over 10,000 5G application cases have covered 22 industries and related fields of the national economy, including steel, electric power and mining.
China is forecast to reach 739 million 5G subscribers by 2025, according to a recent study by ABI Research. This figure would represent nearly 40% of the global market share in the 5G segment.
