China Mobile has added a total of 152 million subscribers in the 5G segment since the beginning of the year
Chinese operators recorded a net gain of 26.2 million 5G subscribers in August, according to the latest operator data available.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, added a total of 15.08 million 5G subscribers in August. The operator said it ended last month with 538.8 million 5G subscribers.
China Mobile has added a total of 152 million subscribers in the 5G segment since the beginning of the year.
China Mobile’s total mobile subscriber base at the end of August stood at 973.24 million, compared with 971.13 million in the previous month.
Rival operator China Unicom said it added a total of 4.88 million 5G subscribers in the past month. The operator ended August with 194.83 million 5G subscribers.
Meanwhile, China Telecom added 6.27 million 5G subscribers last month to increase its total 5G subscriber base to 243.6 million. Since the beginning of the year, the telco has added a total of 55.8 million 5G subscribers.
China Telecom’s total mobile base stood at 388 million subscribers at the end of August, after adding nearly 1.90 million customers during the month.
Chinese operators have already deployed more than 1.97 million 5G base stations across the country, local news agency Xinhua reported recently, citing data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
All prefecture-level cities, counties and 96% of cities in China currently have 5G network coverage, according to MIIT.
In addition, mobile operators are expected to add a total of 600,000 base stations to improve China’s 5G infrastructure in 2022, according to previous reports.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator by subscribers, recently said it invested a total of CNY 58.7 billion ($8.7 billion) in the 5G segment in the first half of the year.
Meanwhile, China Telecom said it expects to deploy an additional 120,000 5G base stations in the second half of the year to bring the total to 990,000.
Together with its network partner China Unicom, China Telecom increased the number of 5G base stations by 180,000 in the first half, bringing the total to 870,000.
China Telecom said it aims to provide 5G coverage to all cities, counties and key villages and towns by the end of the year.
