China Set to Reach Billion 5G Connections This Year

The GSMA has launched the Mobile Economy China 2024 report. It forecasts that over half of Chinese mobile connections will be 5G by the end of 2024.

5G’s contribution to GDP in China is expected to reach almost $260 billion in 2030, which is 23% of the overall annual economic impact of mobile in China. Also by 2030, 5G connections in China will account for nearly a third of the global total, with adoption reaching almost 90%, making it one of the leading markets globally.

“It is great to see China, the world’s largest 5G market, commit so enthusiastically to the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative to help drive the growth and maturity of the technology. As China surpasses 1 billion 5G connections this year, we expect to see further investment and potential in evolutions such as 5G-Advanced, 5G New Calling, and 5G RedCap to improve user experience and unlock new revenue streams for operators,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA.

Meanwhile, the major Chinese operators remain committed to the GSMA Open Gateway initiative. The association launched Open Gateway at MWC Barcelona in 2023. Today, China’s three leading mobile operators announced the commercial launch of the One Time Password (OTP) API, as part of their involvement in the GSMA Open Gateway initiative. In addition, CITIC Telecom, Huawei, and ZTE have become the latest Chinese technology giants to commit to the GSMA Open Gateway.

The 5G market in China continues to mature, leading both to increased connections and to broader economic value. 5G adoption is growing faster than anticipated thanks to the speed of network deployments and maturing device ecosystem. More than 800 million Chinese mobile connections are already 5G.

This year the proportion of 5G connections is predicted to rise from 45% to over 50% and become the dominant mobile technology in the country, with more than 1 billion total connections by the end of 2024. The report also found that there are now 1.28 billion unique mobile subscribers in China – a penetration rate of 88%.

Mobile’s overall contribution to the Chinese economy in 2023 reached $970 billion, or 5.5% of GDP. 5G is expected to reach 1.6 billion connections in 2030, representing a third of the world’s total, and is forecast to contribute $260 billion to China’s GDP.

An additional 290 million people in China now use mobile internet compared to eight years ago (2015), closing the country’s Usage Gap from 43% to just 16%. Mobile data traffic in China is expected to quadruple by the end of the decade. The overall ecosystem now supports almost 8 million jobs in the country and contributes $110 billion annually through taxation, while operator revenues reached $225 billion for 2023. By the end of the decade, the annual economic contribution from China’s mobile sector is forecast to exceed $1 trillion.

A further key driver of 5G growth in China will be the expanded use of the 6 GHz spectrum band. China became the first country in the world to identify the 6 GHz band to IMT in its national legislation in June 2023 as it provides unparalleled contiguous large bandwidth in the mid-band that is crucial to the success of 5G future evolution.