China announced that investment in the 5G field last year increased by 5.7% compared to the previous year.
China increased investment in 5G networks to 190.5 billion yuan ($26.6 billion) last year, a local newspaper reported, citing the latest official data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
China’s 5G investment increased by 5.7% year-on-year last year, accounting for more than 45% of the country’s total communications fixed asset investment. According to the report, China’s total investment in 5G base stations reached 730 billion yuan last year.
According to official data, Chinese companies China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile and China Tower invested RMB420.5 billion in fixed assets last year, an increase of 0.3% year-on-year.
As of the end of last year, China had 11.6 million mobile communication base stations, of which 3.4 million were 5G base stations. Currently, 5G base stations account for 29% of China’s total mobile base stations. This ratio has increased by 7.8 points compared to the end of 2022.
According to the report, the total revenue of China’s telecommunications sector in 2023 was 1.68 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.2% over the previous year.
A local newspaper reported that the penetration rate of 5G technology in China will reach 90% by the end of 2023. Global Times The report cited an executive at local telecommunications company China Mobile.
Bian Yanan, deputy director of China Mobile’s planning and construction department, said the company expects to achieve this penetration rate by deploying 360,000 5G base stations in 2023.
According to Wang Zhiqin, head of China’s 6G promotion team and vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, China aims to start commercializing 6G technology by 2030, and by around 2025. It is expected that the standard setting will be achieved.
Wang previously said that China began 6G technology experiments last year and is proceeding with research on 6G system architecture and technology solutions during 2023.
In June 2023, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that the Chinese government had allocated spectrum in the 6GHz frequency band for 5G and 6G services. The ministry said that considering the benefits of coverage and capacity, the 6 GHz spectrum is the only high-quality resource with wide bandwidth in the mid-band, making the 6 GHz range particularly suitable for the deployment of 5G systems or 6G. future system.
