(Reporter Du Feng) The three major operators have released the operation data report for January 2022, and the operating data of the operators in the month have achieved strong growth and achieved a good start to the new year. Among them, in the growth of 5G package users, the three major operators have achieved a net increase of more than 5 million households, and the number of 5G package customers of China Mobile has increased by 14.471 million, with a cumulative increase of 400 million households. Telecom's 5G package users also increased by 8 million, bringing the total to nearly 200 million. As of now, the total number of 5G package users of the three major operators has exceeded 750 million, which is close to half of the 1.65 billion mobile users.
With the basic completion of 5G outdoor continuous coverage, the continuous improvement of indoor coverage and depth coverage, and the substantial growth of 5G personal consumption scale driven by "5G + VR/AR", the 5G package users of the three major operators are expected to continue to grow significantly in 2022.
Operators' main data is growing positively across the board
In January 2022, the three major operators handed over a gratifying report card, achieving substantial positive growth of more than one million in the three data of net mobile subscribers, net increase in broadband subscribers and net increase in 5G subscribers.
As of the end of January this year, China Mobile had a total of about 960 million mobile subscribers, including about 401 million 5G package customers. The total number of wired broadband service customers was 244 million, with a net increase of 3.841 million customers in the month.
It is worth mentioning that after Telecom Unicom, China Mobile will no longer publish 4G user data, which shows that the three major operators have fully transferred to 5G user expansion.
China Telecom's growth in January was also very impressive. In January, the number of mobile subscribers in China Telecom increased by 3.07 million to a total of 375.5 million. Among them, the net increase of 5G package users was 8.26 million, accumulating 196.06 million, and China Telecom's 5G package user penetration rate reached 52.2%, far exceeding China Mobile's 41.7% penetration rate. In terms of cable broadband services, China Telecom's net increase in the month was 1.54 million, with a cumulative number of 171.25 million subscribers.
China Unicom's transcript is also satisfactory. As of the end of January, China Unicom's mobile users had reached a total of about 318 million households, of which 5G package users increased by 5.568 million, and the cumulative number of reached about 160 million, and the penetration rate exceeded 50% for the first time, reaching 50.4%. Fixed-line broadband subscribers increased by 1.036 million in the month, reaching a total of 96.082 million.
At present, the total number of 5G package users of the three major operators has reached 757.835 million, ranking first in the world. As China Radio and Television will officially open the No. 192 segment on May 17, operators will compete more fiercely for 5G users, and the number of 5G users in the mainland will continue to grow at a high speed.
Deep network coverage consolidates the foundation for user growth
The surge of 5G package users in the mainland is inseparable from the increasingly perfect 5G construction, 5G official commercialization for more than two years, the three major operators continue to accelerate the construction of 5G base stations, 5G boutique network from wide and deep.
The latest data show that in 2021, the number of new 5G base stations in the mainland will be 654,000, and the cumulative number of 5G base stations will be completed and opened to reach 1.425 million, and the 5G network has covered all prefecture-level cities, more than 98% of county towns and urban areas and 80% of townships and towns.
On February 18, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 12 departments issued the "Several Policies on Promoting the Steady Growth of the Industrial Economy", proposing to guide telecom operators to accelerate the progress of 5G construction, it is not difficult to speculate that the construction volume of 5G base stations on the mainland will exceed 2 million in 2022.
With the rapid landing of millions of 5G macro stations, the continuous outdoor coverage and indoor shallow coverage have been basically solved, and continuous expansion and improvement of network coverage have become the focus of subsequent development.
On January 7, China Telecom launched the 2022 China Telecom 5G extended small base station equipment technology test, and the test results will be used for the centralized procurement of small cell products. In addition, China Mobile and China Unicom have also started related work. The three major operators have put large-scale construction of 5G small base stations on the agenda.
"5G+VR" will further stimulate the potential of user growth
In 2022, the mainland's 5G construction has entered the deep water area. According to the trend, the construction of communication networks needs to precede the development of users and applications, and the explosive growth of applications is obviously lagging behind the scale construction of the network and the growth of the scale of users.
In terms of application scenarios, the application scenarios of mainland 5G are accelerating exploration. At present, there are tens of thousands of 5G application innovation cases, especially in the industrial, medical, transportation, education and other industries, which have formed a number of typical applications such as "5G + industrial Internet", "5G + 4K/8K HD video", "5G + smart medical", "5G + Internet of Vehicles", "5G + distance education" and so on.
Some experts predict that "5G + VR/AR" technology is the most promising to derive a "killer" application in the field of 5G personal consumption at this stage. At present, "5G + VR/AR" has been applied in many personal consumption fields such as games, tourism, reading, shopping, etc. China Telecom has begun to build a VR panoramic virtual shopping guide cloud platform to reconstruct the new model of retail scenario-based experience sales through 5G, VR and AR technology.
With the large-scale deployment of small base stations, consumers' dependence on VR/AR devices is expected to decrease, and "5G+VR/AR" is expected to attract more consumers to use through a unique sense of immersion and interactivity, driving a substantial increase in the scale of 5G personal consumption, thus continuing to drive further growth of 5G package users.