Chinese operators recorded a net addition of 43.71 million 5G subscribers in July, according to the carriers’ latest available figures.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, added 28.91 million 5G subscribers in July.
The carrier said it ended last month with 279.60 million 5G subscribers, compared to 84.05 million 5G customers in July 2020.
China Mobile added a total of 114.6 million subscribers in the 5G segment since the beginning of the year.
China Mobile’s overall mobile subscriber base at the end of July reached 947.46 million, up compared to 945.50 million in the previous month.
Meanwhile, Chinese operator China Unicom said it added a total of 7.74 million 5G subscribers during July.
During the first seven months of the year, the carrier added a total of 50.24 million 5G subscribers.
The telco ended July with 121.07 million 5G subscribers. China Unicom started to provide 5G statistics earlier this year.
China Unicom reported an overall mobile base of with 311.61 million subscribers at the end of last month, up from 310.45 million in June.
Rival operator China Telecom added 7.06 million 5G subscribers in July to take its total 5G subscribers base to 138.21 million.
The telco added 51.71 million 5G customers in the January-July period.
China Telecom’s overall mobile base amounted to 364.62 million subscribers at the end of the July, after adding 2.13 million customers during the month.
The country’s three major mobile carriers have already activated 961,000 5G base stations and connected 365 million 5G-compatible devices by end-June, Chinese press reported, citing comments by press secretary for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Tian Yulong.
According to recent press reports, China Broadcast Network and China Mobile have recently completed a tender to deploy 400,000 5G base stations this year, as part of the companies’ efforts to launch a shared 5G network. The contracts had been won by Huawei, ZTE, Datang, Nokia and Ericsson.
The two carriers expect this shared network to reach nationwide coverage within the next two years.
Earlier this year, Liu Liehong, vice minister of industry and information technology, had said that 5G Standalone networks covered all prefecture-level cities across China.
The ministry also estimated 5G mobile phone shipments in China would account for 80% of the total shipments in the second half of this year.
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.
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