China had deployed over five million 5G base stations across the country by the end of April, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed on Tuesday.
In the first four months of this year, China's telecommunication sector continued its steady expansion along with the progress in the construction of its internet infrastructure such as 5G and gigabit optical network, according to the ministry.
From January to April, China's telecommunications businesses volume, calculated at constant prices, grew by 8 percent year on year, with fixed broadband and gigabit optical network coverage both posting solid gains.
By the end of April, the country's three major telecom operators served a total of 698 million fixed broadband subscribers, of whom 95.5 percent had access speeds of 100 Mbps or above, while 253 million were on gigabit-or-faster plans.
On the mobile side, 5G penetration continued to climb. The 5.009 million base stations accounted for 38.7 percent of all mobile base stations by the end of April, and 5G users make up 68.7 percent of the total mobile subscriber base.
Cao Jiguang, deputy director of the Technology and Standards Research Institute at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, noted that the numbers underscore a positive trajectory of China's digital consumption demands.
"China's internet consumption demands continued to expand. In the first four months of this year, mobile internet data traffic saw drastic surge, with cumulative national data usage reaching 142 billion GB, up 18.5 percent year on year. The data reflects the growing demands of internet usage across the population, and the continuously surging vitality of digital consumption on the user side," said Cao.
China reports over 5 mln 5G base stations by end of April
