Figure: Figure worm
Source: 21tech
Author: Ni Yuqing
Editor: Zhang Weixian
Recently, the GSMA (Global Mobile Communication Systems Association) released an annual report "2022 China Mobile Economic Development" shows that China's 5G market continues to develop, and it is expected that by 2025, the total number of 5G connections in China will increase from 488 million in 2021 to 892 million. By then, more than half of China's mobile connections will use 5G, which means that 5G will account for 52% of China's mobile connections.
The report notes that 4G adoption peaked in 2020, but 4G is on a downward trend in 2021 as consumers increasingly shift to 5G packages. Due to the rapid spread of 5G in the Chinese market, China has become one of the world's leading regions for 5G use. Among them, in 2021, the number of new 5G connections in China exceeded 285 million, accounting for 75% of the global 5G connections.
The growth of the 5G market is due to the evolving terminal ecosystem, as well as the increasing sales volume of mobile phones suitable for 5G and better network coverage.
On the one hand, operators in Chinese mainland have deployed more than 1.4 million 5G base stations, and according to the MiE's goal, it plans to increase the number of 5G base stations to 3.64 million by the end of 2025.
On the other hand, although the overall sales of mobile phones declined in January and February this year, the proportion of 5G mobile phones remained at a high level, and the analysis report on the operation of the domestic mobile phone market released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that in February 2022, 5G mobile phones were 11.374 million units, down 24.5% year-on-year, accounting for 76.5% of mobile phone shipments in the same period.
Research firm GFK pointed out that models with 5G capabilities are driving up the price of mobile phones. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the average price of 5G models was $706, while the average price of smartphones without 5G features was only $180. From the perspective of the global market, the market share of 5G models has risen to 73%, which has a continuous impact on the overall average price of smartphones.
In fact, consumers are more willing to upgrade, and the GSMA think tank estimates that Chinese mainland 80% of smartphone users are willing to pay more to enjoy 5G services, and the growing 5G user volume is translating into a higher average revenue per user (ARPU). At present, with the growing demand for bandwidth in various applications, data traffic has been driven by growth, and it is expected that data traffic will grow by nearly 350% by 2027.
At the same time, the mobile industry is an important part of the digital economy, according to the report statistics, in 2021, mobile technology and services for China to contribute 5.6% of GDP, equivalent to 900 billion US dollars of economic added value.
Editor: Lu Taoran