China 5G Subscriptions Reach 1.3 Billion by July

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reported that China's 5G mobile phone subscriptions reached 1.3 billion by the end of July. This figure accounts for 70.5 percent of the country's total mobile subscriptions. Combined data from China Broadnet and the three major telecom operators shows a total of 1.85 billion subscriptions.

Infrastructure expansion continued with the deployment of 5.15 million base stations, a net increase of 316,000 since the end of the previous year. This growth coincided with a 17.6 percent year-on-year increase in mobile internet traffic, which reached 258.7 billion gigabytes. Additionally, Mobile Internet of Things terminal users grew to 2.99 billion.

These metrics align with the Government of China's Digital China initiative and the 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026-2030. The state authority aims to increase the added value of core digital economy industries to 12.5 percent of the national GDP by 2030.