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Friday, 20 September 2024

A Billion for China and China Mobile

As of September 2023 (last year), China had an estimated 750 million active 5G subscriptions. The share of the four operators, all of which have the Chinese government as a majority shareholder, is as shown in the picture above.

China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, surpassed the 1 billion subscriber mark at the end of July, according to the carrier’s latest available data. In the 5G segment, the Chinese carrier ended July with 527.9 million network customers, with a net addition of 13.7 million during the month. It ended the first half of the year with a total of 2.3 million 5G base stations, after adding 351,000 base stations in the period.

According to their latest monthly subscriber stats, China’s ‘big three’ telcos – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – between them chalked up more than 20 million 5G net adds in July alone.

China Mobile is the country’s 5G growth engine, notching an additional 13.7 million subs during July. It took the operator’s 5G customer base to just under 528 million, which accounts for more than half of its total mobile subscriptions of just over 1 billion: China Mobile snagged its one billionth mobile subscriber in June.

China Telecom and China Unicom report the number of ‘5G packages’ rather than active 5G subscribers (which is the statistic that China Mobile now reports). This skews upwards China’s 5G number since those signed up to a 5G package (data bundle) can’t necessarily access 5G services, either due to insufficient network coverage or the lack of a suitable smartphone.

Putting that quibble to one side, China Telecom and China Unicom reported 5G package gains of 3.1 million and 2.9 million subscribers respectively during July. At the end of the month, China Telecom had nearly 340 million on 5G packages, accounting for 81% of its total mobile subscriber base. China Unicom had 279 million 5G package subscribers at that time, which, like China Telecom, represents around 81% of all its mobile subscriptions.

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