China has announced that it has already installed around 700,000 5G base stations this year. Originally, the plan was to install around 500,000 base stations; however, China has already exceeded its target.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) vice-minister Liu Liehong said that China already has more than twice the number of 5G base stations installed outside the country. Currently, China‘s 5G base stations are supporting around 180 million devices in the country.
China is working towards a full 5G coverage throughout the country, and to achieve that, it will need to install 10 million 5G base stations across the country. According to Zhang Yunyong, president of the China Unicom Research Institute, in order to have a full 5G coverage, China will have to make a total investment of around $280 billion.
During a presentation at the company’s Global Mobile Broad Forum in Shanghai, Ryan Ding, president of Huawei’s carrier business group, said that his company expects 5G users to account for 20 percent of total mobile users in China and South Korea by the end of June 2021.
He said, “5G is developing much faster than previous generations. Currently, there are more than 100 commercial 5G networks worldwide, and budget 5G mobile phones have dropped to $151. This is driving up the number of 5G users around the world, and leading carriers are already benefitting from 5G data plans. They are seeing an increase in the ARPU of 5G users through multi-metric service packages and upgraded services like 5G messaging and enriched calling.”`