China has more than 150 million 5G users, of which 50 million do not use 5G phones

China Mobile and China Telecom announced that the number of 5G users in August this year were 98.157 million and 57.14 million respectively, totaling 155 million. China Unicom has not yet announced the number of 5G users.

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Data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology show that the sales volume of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market in 2019 was 13.769 million, and the sales volume of 5G mobile phones in the first eight months of this year was 93.679 million, totaling 107.448 million. By comparison, it can be seen that the number of 5G users is about 48 million more than the sales volume of 5G mobile phones. If China Unicom, which has not announced the number of 5G users, is included, the actual number of 5G users is definitely more than 50 million more than the sales volume of 5G mobile phones.

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The definition of real 5G users should be users who have chosen 5G packages, used 5G networks and 5G mobile phones. This is obviously very different from the current definition of 5G users.

From the above data comparison, it can be seen that among these users who have used 5G packages, about 107 million users are users who use 5G mobile phones and 5G packages. This part should be considered relatively real 5G users.

However, even for these 107 million 5G users, it is not easy to use the 5G network. Currently, the three major operators are accelerating the construction of 5G networks. It is expected that 600,000 5G base stations will be built by the end of this year, of which China Mobile will have 300,000 5G base stations, and China Telecom and China Unicom will jointly build and share 300,000 5G base stations. Compared with China's 2.4 million 4G base stations and China Telecom's more than 1.15 million 4G base stations, it can be said that this is really too few.

In addition, the high price of 5G mobile phones has also affected consumers' use of 5G services. Currently, most 5G mobile phones are priced above 2,000 yuan, and there are too few 5G mobile phones priced between 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan. There is only one 5G mobile phone below 1,000 yuan and it is in short supply. This has also led to many consumers being unwilling to buy 5G mobile phones.

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The high prices of 5G mobile phones and poor 5G network coverage have led to slow 5G commercialization progress. Among the current 155 million 5G users, nearly 50 million do not use 5G mobile phones, which has had a profound impact on the 5G commercialization process.