Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: China's 5G investment reached 184.9 billion yuan in 2021

On January 25, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "2021 Communications Industry Statistical Bulletin". In 2021, 5G investment reached 184.9 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), accounting for 45.6% of total investment, an increase of 8.9 percentage points over the previous year.

The communiqué stated that in 2021, the total number of mobile communication base stations in the country reached 9.96 million, with a net increase of 650,000 throughout the year. Among them, there were 5.9 million 4G base stations and 1.425 million 5G base stations, with more than 650,000 new 5G base stations built throughout the year.

In 2021, China's telephone users increased by 47.55 million, reaching a total of 1.824 billion. Among them, the total number of mobile phone users is 1.643 billion, with a penetration rate of 116.3 per 100 people. Among mobile phone users, there are 1.069 billion 4G mobile phone users and 355 million 5G mobile phone users, accounting for 86.7% of the total number of mobile phone users.

Consumer traffic consumption continues to grow at a high rate. In 2021, the average monthly mobile Internet traffic per household (DOU) reached 13.36GB per household per month, an increase of 29.2% over the previous year; in December, the DOU reached 14.72GB per household, a record high.

The communique also showed that according to preliminary calculations, China's telecommunications business revenue in 2021 totaled 1.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.0% over the previous year, and the growth rate increased by 4.1 percentage points year-on-year. The total volume of telecommunications business calculated at last year's prices reached 1.7 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.8%.

Emerging businesses such as cloud computing and big data are developing rapidly, with related business revenue reaching 222.5 billion yuan in 2021, up 27.8% year-on-year, and their share in telecommunications business revenue increasing from 12.8% last year to 15.2%. Among them, data center, cloud computing, and big data businesses grew by 18.4%, 91.5%, and 35.5% year-on-year, respectively.