China's 5G mobile phone shipments reached 266 million in 2021, and the number of 5G terminal users is approaching 500 million

On January 14, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, directly under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released the 2021 5G Development Report, pointing out that the shipments of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market in 2021 reached 266 million units, a year-on-year increase of 63.5%, accounting for 75.9% of mobile phone shipments in the same period, far higher than the global average of 40.7%.

As of the end of November 2021, the total number of mobile phone users of the three basic telecommunications companies, including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, reached 1.642 billion, of which the number of 5G mobile terminal connections reached 497 million, accounting for about 30% of the total number of users, a net increase of 298 million from the end of last year.

In terms of infrastructure construction, as of the end of November 2021, China has built a total of 1.396 million 5G base stations, covering all urban areas at or above the prefecture level, more than 97% of counties and districts, and 50% of townships and towns across the country. Among them, telecom operators have jointly built and shared more than 800,000 5G base stations.

As of now, China has built and commercialized more than 2,300 5G industry virtual private networks.

In contrast, in November 2021, Xie Cun, director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that China has built more than 1.15 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 70% of the world, making it the world's largest and most technologically advanced 5G independent networking network.

At the same time, 5G network coverage has been achieved in all prefecture-level city urban areas, more than 97% of county towns and 40% of township towns across the country, and the number of 5G terminal users has reached 450 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world's total.