It may be too early to claim that 5G package user development has cooled down

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The three major operators all released their operating reports for January 2021 today. China Unicom has continued its previous practice of not releasing the development of 5G users, China Telecom has achieved another monthly number of over 10 million, and China Mobile has seen a significant slowdown in growth. Faced with this situation, some netizens believe that the once-hot 5G user development can finally cool down.

1. The development of 5G users in 2020 far exceeded expectations

At the beginning of 2020, China Mobile planned to develop 70 million 5G package users within the year. In fact, as early as September 2020, China Mobile completed its annual development goal, and this super high development speed continued until the end of 2020, and finally developed 165 million 5G package users throughout the year.

The situation of China Telecom is similar to that of China Mobile. In other words, both China Mobile and China Telecom seized the favorable opportunity of the early stage of 5G, made full use of the general public's novelty of 5G, worked hard and achieved the goal of super-speed development.

China Unicom has not yet announced its 5G user development. In this regard, China Unicom's senior management has clearly pointed out that the current 5G package user development data has limited significance for the company's business development. China Unicom's pragmatic business philosophy is certainly worthy of our respect. However, judging from the competition, China Unicom has not relaxed.

2. 5G user development has indeed slowed down on a monthly basis

China Mobile's operating data for January 2021 showed that its 5G package users increased by 3.968 million, a decrease of more than 10 million from the previous month. During the same period, China Telecom's 5G users increased by 10.67 million, the second month with more than 10 million users since China Telecom had 5G package user development data.

It is equivalent to China Mobile's obvious slowdown, while China Telecom's 5G package users have achieved a second miracle of development of over 10 million in a single month. It should be said that everyone faces the same external environment, and the reason for this obvious contrast is indeed worthy of in-depth analysis by China Mobile.

Although we do not know the reason for the slowdown in the development of China Mobile's 5G package users, from various official information, China Mobile's attitude towards the development of 5G users is still very resolute. China Mobile's senior management said that in 2021, it will work with the industry chain to achieve the goal of adding 200 million new 5G mobile phones to the network.

3. The extremely high burden on 5G package users deserves to be addressed

Data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that my country's cumulative shipments of 5G mobile phones in 2020 reached 163 million units, and the number of 5G package users of China Mobile and China Telecom has approached or even exceeded 250 million. If China Unicom is also included, the number of my country's 5G package users will most likely exceed 300 million.

There are 4G terminal users between the approximately 160 million 5G mobile terminals and the approximately 300 million 5G packages. This means that operators have developed a large number of 4G terminal users into 5G package users in advance. However, what is even more terrifying for operators is that the traffic of these 5G packages must still be carried by the 4G network.

Data released by China Mobile shows that by the end of 2020, there were 110 million active 5G terminal users on its network. Between the 110 million 5G terminals and the 165 million package users are 4G terminal users. Although these 4G users enjoy the ultra-low unit price of 5G traffic, they have put tremendous pressure on the operator's 4G network.

We must not underestimate the 50 million or so 4G terminal users who use 5G packages. This number has exceeded the total number of mobile phones in most provinces and cities, and most of these users live in large and medium-sized cities where 4G networks are already overcrowded, which has put great pressure on operators' 4G network carrying capacity.

Network, packages and terminals are the necessary conditions for users to upgrade to 5G users. When networks and packages are already available and constantly improving, terminals become the main obstacle restricting users from migrating to 5G. Therefore, in the process of promoting the development of 5G users, taking multiple aspects into consideration may be the best way.