China invested $27 billion in 5G last year

China raised its investment in fifth-generation network to CNY190.5 billion (USD26.6 billion) last year, according to the latest official data.

China’s 5G investment rose 5.7 percent last year from the year before, accounting for over 45 percent of the country’s telecom fixed-asset investment, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Jan. 24. China’s total investment in 5G base stations has topped CNY730 billion.

Chinese telecoms carriers China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Tower invested CNY420.5 billion in fixed assets last year, up 0.3 percent from the previous year, according to the 2023 Communication Industry’s Statistical Bulletin released on Jan. 24.

China had 11.6 million mobile communication base stations as of the end of last year, 3.4 million or 29 percent of which were 5G base stations. The ratio is 7.8 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

But according to industry insiders, China is deploying 5G network infrastructures slower.

China Telecom reduced its broadband network investment by 16 percent to CNY15.5 billion (USD2.2 billion) last year from the year before, accounting for nearly 16 percent of the company’s total spending, down 4.4 percentage points in the period. China Mobile’s planned 5G network investment was CNY83 billion last year, down CNY13 billion from 2022.

The peak of 5G capital expenditure was between 2020 and 2022, China Unicom said before, adding that it spent about CNY35 billion each of these three years on 5G. Afterward, the company would gradually reduce 5G investments, China Unicom noted.

Sixth-generation network will be put into commercial use around 2030, and it will be standardized in 2025, Wang Zhiqin, deputy head of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, recently said.

Mobile internet, fixed broadband width access, and cloud computing will drive future development trends, an official at the MIIT’s Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau said. These three emerging fields accounted for 38 percent, 16 percent, and 21 percent, respectively, of China’s total telecom business revenue last year.

According to the report, The revenue of firms in China’s telecom sector totaled CNY1.68 trillion (USD236 billion) in 2023, an increase of 6.2% over the previous year. Yicai