5G in numbers: 5G trends revealed by statistics in the first half of 2021

[[420577]]

2021 marks the second anniversary of the issuance of 5G licenses. In the past two years, 5G has gradually set sail from its initial embryonic stage and opened up new markets for vertical industries. In the first half of 2021, my country's 5G construction and application have begun to take shape. According to the data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of June 2021, China has built a total of 961,000 5G base stations, covering all cities at the prefecture level and above in the country, and the number of 5G mobile terminal connections has reached 365 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world. Typical applications such as 5G+ ultra-high-definition video, smart education, smart hospitals, public health, and healthy elderly care have accelerated their development, and there are more than 10,000 5G application innovation cases across the country.

As an important part of the new infrastructure, 5G's role in driving the development of the industrial chain has attracted much attention. According to the data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, it is estimated that from the issuance of 5G commercial licenses to 2025, 5G will drive telecom operators' network construction investment of about 1.2 trillion yuan, drive vertical industry 5G network and 5G terminal equipment investment of about 470 billion yuan, and directly drive the total economic output of more than 10 trillion yuan. Judging from the statistics in the first half of 2021, my country's 5G construction will reach a new level in the second half of the year.

The number of 5G base stations has reached 961,000, and network construction will be concentrated in the second half of the year

"If you want to get rich, you must first build roads." 5G networks build information highways. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of June 2021, China has built a total of 961,000 5G base stations, covering all cities at the prefecture level and above across the country.

According to statistics, by the end of June this year, China Mobile had opened 501,000 5G base stations, with a full-year target of more than 700,000; China Telecom and China Unicom jointly built and shared 5G base stations, and currently both parties have 460,000 5G base stations in use, with a full-year target of 700,000. In the first half of this year, the three major telecom operators built less than 200,000 new 5G base stations. At the same time, the three major telecom operators emphasized in their financial reports that they would maintain 5G investment throughout the year, which means that the 5G investment of the three major telecom operators will be concentrated in the second half of the year.

As of the end of June, China Mobile has opened 501,000 5G base stations, providing 5G services to cities above prefecture level, some county towns and key areas across the country. Adhering to the principle of "co-construction, sharing and win-win", it has orderly promoted the co-construction and sharing of the 700MHz network with China Radio and Television Network Group Co., Ltd., and has completed the centralized procurement of wireless network main equipment and antennas on behalf of both parties.

China Telecom continues to jointly build and share 5G networks with China Unicom, making full use of the complementary network resources of both parties and the adjacent frequencies of 3.5GHz/2.1GHz to rapidly improve the efficiency of 5G network construction and coverage capabilities. The number of 5G base stations in use has reached 460,000, and the 5G network will cover county towns and developed townships within the year.

China Unicom has promoted network co-construction and sharing, and has opened 461,000 5G base stations. The 5G network has covered urban areas at prefecture level and above, and the core urban areas of developed counties. The network scale is comparable to that of its competitors, and the scope of 4G co-construction and sharing continues to expand. Through the co-construction and sharing of 4G/5G networks, the cumulative investment savings for both parties exceeded 100 billion yuan, and both parties saved considerable network costs such as tower usage fees, electricity fees and network maintenance fees.

Operators' 5G investment slowed down in the first half of the year

The popularity of 5G can also be seen from the investment situation. According to statistics, the investment of the three major telecom operators has slowed down in the first half of this year. In terms of investment amount, in the first half of this year, China Mobile completed an investment of 86 billion yuan, which was less than 15% less than the same period last year; China Telecom completed 31% of the planned investment, which was equivalent to 63% of the same period last year; China Unicom completed 20.4% of the annual planned investment.

Among them, China Mobile's 5G capital expenditure in the first half of the year was 50.2 billion yuan, and the annual plan was about 110 billion yuan. According to data released by China Telecom, China Telecom's capital expenditure in the first half of 2021 was 27 billion. Among them, 11.05 billion yuan was invested in 5G networks, and 50,000 5G base stations were built. In the first half of 2021, China Unicom completed a total capital expenditure of 14.3 billion yuan, focusing on ensuring mobile networks, broadband data networks, infrastructure and transmission network expertise. Among them, the mobile network spent a total of 4.55 billion yuan in the first half of the year, accounting for 31.83%. The specific data of China Unicom's 5G expenditure in the first half of the year was not disclosed.

Entering the A-share market, the prospectuses published by China Telecom and China Mobile both stated that the funds raised will be used for 5G construction. China Telecom stated at the special shareholders' meeting held on April 9, 2021 that the actual funds raised by the company, after deducting the issuance expenses, will be used for projects related to the company's main business, as follows: First, the 5G industrial Internet construction project, second, the cloud-network integration new information infrastructure project, and third, the scientific and technological innovation research and development project. China Mobile was approved by the company's shareholders at the special shareholders' meeting on June 9, 2021. The funds raised from the issuance of RMB shares are intended to be used for: Focusing on new infrastructure, new elements, and new momentum, promoting digital transformation and building a new digital ecology, including 5G boutique network construction projects, cloud resource new infrastructure construction projects, Gigabit smart home construction projects, smart middle platform construction projects, new generation information technology research and development and digital ecology construction projects.

The total number of 5G users has reached 495 million, and the user penetration rate continues to increase

In the first half of 2021, consumers' choice and recognition of 5G have gradually increased. The number of users of 5G packages of the three major operators has reached 495 million, and the penetration rate has gradually increased.

In the first half of 2021, China Mobile's 5G package customers reached 251 million, and 5G network customers reached 127 million. 5G ARPU was 88.9 yuan, and the ARPU of 4G to 5G customers increased by 10.0%; 5G DOU was 20.7GB. In the public market, China Mobile focuses on 5G network customer operations, and uses a combination of product traction, terminal traction, network traction, and tariff traction to accelerate the migration of 4G customers to 5G and promote the effective improvement of customer value. China Telecom's 5G package users reached 131 million, with a penetration rate of 36.2%. The number of users of 5G feature applications has grown rapidly, and users have maintained good value growth by upgrading to 5G. Mobile user ARPU has stopped falling and continued to rise, reaching RMB 45.7, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%, and the growth rate has further increased compared with the first quarter. China Unicom's 5G package users reached 113 million, and the penetration rate of 5G package users reached 36.5%.

In the first half of 2021, the shipment of 5G mobile phones continued to increase, becoming the main driving force for market growth. Recently, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology released the "July 2021 Domestic Mobile Phone Market Operation Analysis Report", pointing out that in July, domestic mobile phone shipments reached 28.676 million units, a year-on-year increase of 28.6% and a month-on-month increase of 11.7%. The accelerated penetration of 5G mobile phones has become the main driving force for market growth, with shipments of 22.834 million units, accounting for 79.6%.

According to statistics, from January to July 2021, the total shipments of mobile phones in the domestic market totaled 203 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%. Among them, the shipments of 5G mobile phones totaled 151 million units, a year-on-year increase of 94.3%, accounting for 74.3% of the mobile phone shipments in the same period. As of the end of July 2021, the domestic market had shipped a total of 327 million 5G mobile phones. From January to July 2021, a total of 239 new models were launched, a year-on-year decrease of 6.6%, of which 121 were 5G mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 4.0%, accounting for 50.6% of the number of new mobile phone models launched in the same period.

5G's entry into the government and enterprise markets has yielded initial results

The toB sector is the future direction of 5G development. To promote the development of 5G applications from 1 to N, on July 13, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and ten other departments jointly issued the "5G Application "Sailing" Action Plan (2021-2023)" with the goal of further promoting 5G to empower thousands of industries and promote the formation of a high-level development model of "demand drives supply, and supply creates demand". With the joint efforts of various industries, 5G's entry into the government and enterprise market has begun to show results.

In the government and enterprise market, China Mobile continues to leverage the traction and driving effect of the "model house", working with leading industry customers to create 100 new group-level leading demonstration projects; actively promoting the scale expansion and value realization of 5G, relying on benchmark projects to actively create high-quality "commercial housing" with a healthy business model. The network has signed a total of 900 provincial regional characteristic projects, expanded 452 5G private network projects, and signed 122 large DICT orders with a contract amount of over 10 million yuan, driving DICT's incremental revenue to exceed 6 billion yuan.

The application value of China Telecom's 5G has initially emerged and has been widely implemented in many fields such as government affairs, finance, industry, and social livelihood. The three 5G customized network service modes of "Zhiyuan, Bilin, and Ruyi" have fully exerted the SA characteristics. By empowering traditional industries with intelligence, customers' operation and management efficiency have been significantly improved. A series of benchmark projects such as smart factories, mines, ports, power grids, and cities have been quickly replicated in many places across the country. 5G business models based on network coverage, computing resources, platform management, and application services are becoming increasingly diversified. In the first half of the year, 5G applications in the government and enterprise fields gradually entered the harvest period, and 5G application scenarios nearly doubled compared to the end of 2020, and market demand showed explosive growth.

In the government and enterprise market, China Unicom seizes the opportunities of digital transformation of the whole society and the industry, and actively promotes the innovative development of 5G+ vertical industry application integration; takes 5G private network as the entry point, integrates its own capabilities, expands ecological cooperation, and forms differentiated advantages of digital services; innovates the 5G application product system, relying on the five major components of 5G industry private network, MEC, industry platform, customized services, and terminals, supports more than 15 industry applications, and comprehensively promotes the scale development of 5G applications; actively explores business models, flexibly meets the needs of 5G industry customers, and successfully creates a number of influential 5G lighthouse projects such as the world's first 5G fully connected factory and the world's first underground 5G private network in key areas such as industrial Internet, smart mines, smart medical care, and smart cities, realizing the commercialization of 5G.

Some of them lead the evolution of 5G standard technology, and green 5G helps achieve the dual carbon goals

In terms of 5G standards, the 5G R16 version has already been frozen, and the R17 version, which was supposed to be frozen in September 2021, has been further postponed. 3GPP decided to postpone the freezing time of the latest 5G evolution version R17 by another half year, that is, to complete the freezing of the version protocol code in June 2022.

In terms of technological innovation, China Mobile leads the evolution of 5G technology, and its standard patent reserves rank first among global operators; its digital autonomy in fields such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, Internet of Things, cloud computing, security, and super SIM continues to improve. In terms of leading the formulation of 5G standards and technological evolution, 23 new standard projects have been added to international standard organizations such as 3GPP/ITU, reaching a total of 122, leading the formulation of standards in key areas of R17; and jointly released the "5G Wireless Technology Evolution White Paper" with more than 20 companies, defining the future evolution direction of R18 and evolution standards. It has applied for more than 3,300 5G patents in total, and its standard patent reserves rank first among global operators.

The dual carbon goals are important areas that need to be paid attention to in the development of 5G. The three major operators paid attention to the realization of the dual carbon goals in the development of 5G and carried out green energy-saving optimization.

In terms of sustainable development, China Mobile has released the white paper "C2 Three Energies - China Mobile's Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality Action Plan", achieving "energy saving" in operations through technological innovation, increasing the proportion of clean energy to achieve "clean energy" in electricity use, and leveraging operational advantages to help "empower" carbon reduction.

China Telecom has implemented AI smart energy conservation for mobile base stations based on big data analysis and self-developed algorithms, introduced social capital and technology to carry out energy conservation and emission reduction technology transformation, and improved the energy efficiency of base stations. Newly built 5G base stations save an average of more than 20% of energy consumption, and 4G base stations save an average of 10% of energy consumption; with the help of natural cooling sources, high-efficiency power supplies, liquid-cooled servers and other energy-saving means, the PUE of newly built large data centers is less than 1.3. Integrate big data into investment management and control, integrate business operation data with regional population density, assess the regional priority of mobile network construction, and achieve precise management and control of mobile network investment.

China Unicom has released the "14th Five-Year Plan for Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality", with the goal of green, low-carbon and circular development, to continuously improve the greening level of communication network infrastructure and help thousands of industries achieve "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality". China Unicom has taken three measures to reduce electricity costs in the 5G era. First, some old equipment such as 2G will be decommissioned to reduce energy consumption; second, low-energy consumption equipment will be selected as much as possible during procurement to reduce total energy consumption; third, through co-construction and sharing, the total number of base stations that China Unicom needs to bear will be reduced, which will also effectively reduce energy consumption.