According to recent reports and an article published by the Mobile World Congress, China, now has more than 65 million 5G subscribers (as of end March 2020). China Mobile and China Telecom picked up more than 17 million 5G subscribers in April, taking their combined tally to 65.45 million six months after introducing the new service.
Market leader China Mobile added 12.02 million new subscribers, ending the month with over 43.7 million subscribers. It had a net gain of 432,000 mobile subscribers in April for a total of 946.7 million. And according to the company’s Deputy GM Jian Qin, it aims to have over 100 million 5G subscribers by the end of the year. The company has also deployed 124,000 compatible base stations in 56 cities as it targets a total of 300,000 by the year-end.
China Telecom added 5.09 million 5G subscribers in April, taking its total to 21.7 million: net additions of 1.97 million took its overall user base to 338.5 million. China Unicom on the other hand, has not released April subscriber figures and also did not issue 5G numbers over the opening three months of 2020.
And while China has been recording new 5G subscribers in numbers, the country also has an upper hand in the number of 5G enabled smartphones in use and production. Click here to read Strategy Analytics full report on “Impact of COVID-19 on Purchase of Planned 5G and Smartphones in China”.
