According to a report from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the economic performance of the telecommunications industry in China has remained stable through the first three quarters of 2024. Major indicators fall within reasonable ranges, new infrastructure projects are progressing smoothly, and the user bases for technologies like 5G, gigabit internet, and the Internet of Things continue to expand. Additionally, mobile internet access traffic is experiencing significant growth.
**Overall Industry Performance**
Telecommunications revenue is experiencing steady growth, with a total revenue of 1.3152 trillion yuan in the first three quarters, marking a 2.6% year-on-year increase. When adjusting for last year’s prices, overall telecom business growth stands at 10.7%.
Revenue from fixed broadband services has also shown stable growth. The three major telecom companies reported 204.4 billion yuan in broadband revenue, up 4.2% year-on-year, which now accounts for 15.6% of total telecom revenue—an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared to the first eight months, contributing a 0.6 percentage-point boost to overall telecom revenue.
However, revenue from mobile data traffic has begun to decline, totaling 484 billion yuan in the first three quarters, down 1.6% year-on-year, and comprising 36.8% of overall telecom revenue.
Emerging business sectors, like IPTV, internet data centers, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, are seeing rapid growth. These businesses generated 325.2 billion yuan in revenue—a 9.4% increase from the previous year—making up 24.7% of total telecom revenues and adding 2.2 percentage points to overall growth. Notably, cloud computing and big data revenue surged by 9.4% and 61.8%, respectively, while IoT business saw a 13% year-on-year increase.
Mobile voice service revenue continues its downward trend. In the first three quarters, fixed and mobile voice services generated revenues of 14.55 billion yuan and 82.19 billion yuan, respectively, reflecting growth of 3.9% and a decline of 3.6% year-on-year, together accounting for 7.4% of total telecom revenue—a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from the previous year.
**Telecom User Development**
The number of fixed broadband users is steadily increasing, with nearly 200 million gigabit users as of the end of September. The total number of fixed internet broadband users among the three major telecom companies reached 666 million, an increase of 29.55 million from the end of last year. Among these, users with access speeds of 100 Mbps or higher reached 631 million, accounting for 94.7% of total users. Those with speeds of 1000 Mbps or higher grew to 196 million, increasing by 32.73 million from the end of last year, which represents 29.4% of the total—up 3.7 percentage points year-on-year. This surge in high-speed users has propelled the average household broadband speed to 499.1 Mbps, up 14.6% from last year.
Mobile phone users are also on the rise, with the number reaching 1.786 billion by the end of September, adding 42.06 million from the end of last year. Among these, 5G mobile users totaled 981 million, an increase of 159 million, which accounts for 54.9% of all mobile phone users—up 8.3 percentage points compared to last year.
The number of connected cellular IoT devices is growing rapidly, while IPTV users are steadily increasing. By the end of September, the three major telecom companies had developed 2.596 billion cellular IoT terminals, an increase of 264 million from last year, which represents 59.2% of total mobile terminal connections. The total number of IPTV users reached 406 million, gaining 5.135 million since last year.
**Telecom Service Utilization**
Mobile internet traffic is on the rise, with an average monthly data usage (DOU) of 18.4 GB per user in September. During the first three quarters, total mobile internet traffic reached 2.464 trillion GB, a year-on-year growth of 12.4%. The number of mobile internet users hit 1.57 billion, with a net increase of 45.49 million since last year. The average monthly mobile internet access per user in September was 18.38 GB, reflecting a 7.9% year-on-year increase.
Conversely, the volume of phone calls is continuing to decline, although revenue from mobile messaging services remains stable. In the first three quarters, outgoing calls from mobile phones totaled 16.1 trillion minutes, down 4.8% year-on-year, while fixed-line calls decreased by 1.7% to 58.6 billion minutes. However, mobile messaging service volume grew by 3.6%, with revenues increasing 1.9% compared to last year.
**Telecommunication Capacity**
The total length of optical fiber cables is consistently growing, reaching 71.83 million kilometers by the end of September—a net increase of 7.514 million kilometers since last year. This includes proportions of 60.8% for access network cables, 37.7% for local network relay cables, and 1.6% for long-distance cables, with the share of local relay cables increasing by 2.1 percentage points compared to the first half of the year.
The construction of gigabit fiber broadband is progressing steadily, with the total number of internet broadband access ports reaching 1.194 billion by the end of September, an increase of 57.78 million. Among these, fiber access (FTTH/O) ports have climbed to 1.153 billion, representing 96.6% of total broadband access ports. Additionally, the number of 10G PON ports capable of gigabit network service reached 27.32 million, reflecting a net increase of 4.299 million.
5G network construction continues to advance, with the total number of mobile phone base stations reaching 12.64 million by the end of September, an increase of 1.019 million. The number of 5G base stations alone reached 4.089 million, making up 32.4% of all mobile base stations—up 3.3 percentage points from last year.
**Regional Developments**
The penetration rate of gigabit users is on the rise in various regions. By the end of September, the penetration rates for fixed broadband users with speeds of 1000 Mbps or higher in East, Central, Western, and Northeast China were 30.1%, 29.9%, 29.8%, and 21.6%, respectively. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta regions, the rates are 31.2% and 29.2%, showing monthly increases of 0.6 and 0.2 percentage points, respectively.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region leads in 5G construction and application. By the end of September, 5G base stations in the East, Central, Western, and Northeast regions numbered 1.801 million, 926,000, 1.101 million, and 260,000, constituting 33.3%, 33.7%, 29.8%, and 33.1% of their respective total mobile base stations. The number of 5G mobile users in these regions reached 428 million, 232 million, 256 million, and 66 million, making up 55.3%, 55.4%, 54.6%, and 52.9% of their total mobile phone users.
In nine provinces, the average monthly data usage (DOU) exceeded 20 GB per user by September. During the first three quarters, mobile internet traffic for the East, Central, Western, and Northeast regions reached 1.033 trillion GB, 582 billion GB, 713 billion GB, and 137 billion GB, reflecting year-on-year growth rates of 8.9%, 17.2%, 12.6%, and 19.7%, respectively. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta regions logged traffic of 187.9 billion GB and 423.1 billion GB with increases of 18.8% and 5.4%. In total, nine provinces reported average monthly mobile internet access exceeding 20 GB per user, with a variance of 17.6 GB between the highest and lowest DOU, widening by 3.2 GB from the previous year.
(Note: Starting February 2024, 5G mobile user numbers, mobile internet traffic, and mobile internet user numbers from China Broadcasting Network will be included in industry aggregate data, with corresponding adjustments to last year’s figures.)
