Per reporter: Zhao Li Nan Per editor: Zhang Haini
On February 21, China Mobile (600941, SH), China Telecom (601728, SH) and China Unicom (600050, SH) released january 2022 operating data.
The "Daily Economic News" reporter noted that compared with the end of last year, the number of 5G users of the three operators in January this year has increased. Among them, the number of 5G package customers of China Mobile exceeded the 400 million mark, reaching about 401 million.
In addition, many analysts believe that 5G has laid the foundation for the metaverse, and the metacosm's requirements for computing power and communication speed will in turn continue to drive 5G growth.
The number of 5G subscribers continues to grow
According to The announcement of China Mobile, as of the end of January this year, the total number of customers in its mobile business was about 960 million, of which the number of 5G package customers was about 401 million. At the end of last year, China Mobile's 5G package customers were about 387 million.
Image source: Screenshot of China Mobile's announcement
According to The announcement of China Telecom, as of the end of January, the number of mobile users was about 380 million, of which the number of 5G package users was about 196 million, and the number of 5G package users of China Telecom at the end of last year was about 188 million.
According to The announcement of China Unicom, as of the end of January, the cumulative number of mobile outbound users reached about 318 million, of which the cumulative number of 5G package users reached about 160 million, and the net increase of 5G package users of China Unicom in January this month was 5.568 million.
The "Daily Economic News" reporter noted that the 5G users of the three major operators continued to grow in January this year, continuing the growth trend of the 5G industry last year.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's "2021 Communications Industry Statistical Bulletin", by the end of last year, the number of 5G mobile phone users in the mainland reached 355 million.
In 2021, 5G applications have also shown a trend of blooming everywhere. "There are more than 10,000 application innovation cases in the 5G industry, covering more than 20 national economic industries such as industry and medical care, and the application links penetrate from the production auxiliary links to the core links, and the typical application scenarios of '5G + industrial Internet' are gradually evolving to large-scale replication." The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in the analysis.
According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2021, the mainland has built and opened 1.425 million 5G base stations, built the world's largest 5G network, and achieved coverage of all prefecture-level cities and urban areas in the country, more than 98% of county urban areas and 80% of townships and towns, and gradually promoted to rural areas with conditions and needs. The total number of 5G base stations in the mainland accounts for more than 60% of the world; the number of 5G base stations per 10,000 people reached 10.1, an increase of nearly 1 times over the end of the previous year. The annual 5G investment was 184.9 billion yuan, accounting for 45.6% of the investment in telecommunications fixed assets.
Previously, when investors asked about China Mobile's 5G capital expenditure plan, China Mobile said: "It is expected that 2020 to 2022 will be the peak of investment. The company's capital expenditure will be 180.6 billion yuan in 2020, and 183.6 billion yuan will be disclosed in early 2021, and the capital expenditure plan for 2022 is still in progress. The company will comprehensively consider the network layout, customer needs, investment returns and other factors, rationally plan network investment, including 5G investment, the overall capital expenditure will not increase significantly. ”
The metaverse continues to detonate 5G?
The concept of meta-universe in the capital market has been hot recently, and many investors are also full of expectations for what kind of industrial changes the meta-universe will bring.
The Business Model Research Center of HSBC Business School of Peking University and the Anxin Securities Metacosmology Research Institute believe in their research report "Metacosmity 2022 - Accumulated Power" (hereinafter referred to as the report) that the metacosm will bring a new infrastructure, and 5G is the foundation of the metacosm. "Metacosms place higher demands on network bandwidth," the report said. 5G is a comprehensive innovation of the existing mobile communication system, and is the basis for new technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing to develop in the future, which will provide a high-speed, low-latency data transmission channel for the metaverse. ”
At the same time, the report of the two research institutions also believes that "the metacosm will continue to bring huge computing needs." The 5G era will bring about an explosive growth of data, and the demand for computing power scale and computing power will be greatly improved, and the progress of computing power will support the innovation of applications in reverse, promoting the upgrading of technology and the speed of innovation of algorithms. ”
Image source: Metaverse 2022 – Power Accumulated Screenshot
Xu Zexuan of ccid consulting digital economy industry research center also holds a similar view. Xu Zexuan believes in an analytical article that 5G has become the key to the landing of the metaverse and is expected to continue the high growth rate. Xu Zexuan said that "5G + VR (virtual reality)/AR (augmented reality)" technology is the most promising to derive a "killer" application in the field of 5G personal consumption at this stage, especially after the concept of metaverse is proposed, "5G +VR/AR" has become the key to achieving the landing of metaversics.
In the previous investor research activities, some investors asked about China Mobile's layout of the meta-universe, China Mobile said: "The meta-universe concept is still in the early stage of development, involving many industries and application scenarios, and the company will actively pay attention to its development. ”
It is worth noting that although China Mobile judged that the metaverse is still in the early stages of development, it has also been laid out accordingly. "The company is actively building a new information infrastructure focusing on 5G, computing power network (CFN), and smart middle office (AaaS)." China Mobile said.
China Mobile said: "The company can provide the computing power required for real modeling and interaction, large-scale virtual content production experience, to meet the needs of ultra-low latency and ultra-large bandwidth." Based on the existing XR capability field layout, the company forges the underlying virtual scene immersion ability, and can provide the ability to integrate virtual and real, the three-dimensional modeling ability with human subjects, and the rendering ability in the future. The company focuses on the construction of digital homo sapiens and scenes, has created a digital Homo sapiens image for 5G ice and snow, and takes digital competitive sports as the main body to carry out research pilots on relevant computing power and ability services. ”
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