The number of 5G package users exceeds 600 million, and the profits of the three major operators have skyrocketed. Is 5G starting to make money?

In June 2019, the four major operators obtained 5G licenses, and since then started the vigorous 5G construction.

During the more than two years of construction, there have been constant reports online that 5G construction requires large investments, high costs, and high power consumption. Many people even said that building 5G operators is a difficult task, as they are not making any money at all and can hardly afford to pay the electricity bills.

But in fact, with the release of the latest quarterly financial reports of the three major operators, there is no such thing as not being able to pay the electricity bill. When the number of users of 5G packages grows to a certain level, the operators will make money. Look, the profits have skyrocketed.

First, the data shows that China Mobile's revenue was 648.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%; net profit was 87.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.9%. China Telecom's revenue was 326.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.3%; net profit was 23.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%. China Unicom's revenue was 244.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%; net profit was 12.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.4%.

This data doesn't seem like the operators are suffering in silence as everyone says. It's clear that 5G has started to make a lot of money.

In fact, why were the three major operators able to make so much money in the third quarter? The reason is that there are really a lot of 5G package users, which have exceeded 600 million.

According to the data, the number of 5G package customers of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom are 331 million, 156 million and 137 million respectively, totaling 624 million. The number of China Mobile users exceeds the total of China Unicom and China Telecom.

This is actually one of the fundamental reasons for the revenue and profit growth of the three major operators in the third quarter. After all, the average ARPU value of 5G package users is higher, the traffic used is more, and the tariff is more expensive.

But what’s interesting is that we can also compare other data, that is, the shipment volume of 5G mobile phones. As of September, the total number of 5G mobile phones sold in China was actually only more than 360 million units.

In other words, the number of 5G mobile phone packages is far greater than the number of 5G mobile phone users, which means that among the 624 million package users, many non-5G mobile phones have also been activated with 5G packages and are paying more expensive phone bills.

I believe now everyone understands why operators are always trying so hard to sell you 5G packages. Even if you have a 4G mobile phone, they will ask you to sign up for a 5G package. In fact, it is ultimately for their own revenue and profits.