Independent, Consistent, Comprehensive
  • Regions
  • Asia
  • China
  • China - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

China Telecoms Market Report

Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Report Cover Image New Release

Last updated: 18 Feb 2025 Update History

Report Status: Current

Report Pages: 166

China aiming for 5G penetration rate of at least 85% before commercialising 6G

Supported by a population of more than 1.4 billion people, China has the world's largest telecom markets for fixed-line telephony, broadband, and mobile services in terms of the total number of subscribers. Penetration rates for broadband and mobile services are also relatively high, resulting from strong growth in these sectors in recent years as end-users respond positively to improved network access and capacity resulting from continuing investment undertaken by the three state-sponsored telcos.

These three integrated telcos are China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom. Together they offer a semblance of competition across the vast market. Subscribers are free to switch between providers, and measures such as number portability have facilitated this considerably, particularly in the mobile market since about 2020. Customer churn has also encouraged the three to focus on the customer experience in a bid to retain subscribers. To this end they have not only increased data rates and network capacity, but have also made available a range of A1-enhanced features which permeate customer interactions with the telcos themselves as also with integrated service offerings and payment systems.

Yet the country’s telecoms sector is perhaps best characterised by the dominant role played by the central government in planning where to invest in infrastructure as well as in research to keep China at the forefront of the industry. Despite the challenges in Western markets faced by China’s major telecom equipment manufacturers (including Huawei and ZTE) as well as the offshore subsidiaries of its telcos, China was among the first countries globally to begin working on the development of 6G. Such early starts are commonly undertaken in a bid to influence standardisation by bodies such as the ITU, though in China’s case the interest is as much in redressing the West’s dominance in the process, and putting itself to the fore. China is thus at the forefront in upcoming developments concerned with 6G, AI, mobile-to-satellite connectivity, and similar.

China Mobile dominates the mobile market, though while it enjoyed a with 57% market share at the beginning of 2025 this share has fallen steadily since 2016 as China Telecom and China Unicom have encroached. China Telecom is performing well in the fast-growing fixed broadband market, to the point where revenue from wireline services now account for 26% of total service revenue compared to 42% for mobile services.

With fixed broadband penetration having reached 45% in early 2025, China now also has the largest number of broadband connections in the world. That the vast majority of these are fibre is a result of aggressive deployment programs by both China Telecom and China Unicom in a bid to offset the decline in the number of fixed-line telephony subscribers.

Key Developments

  • Government initiates plan to increase 5G base station density rate to 38 per 100,000 by 2027 and increase 5G penetration rate to 85%.
  • MIIT allows China Mobile to refarm sub-3GHz spectrum from GSM, 3G, and LTE networks to 5G.
  • China to upgrade its Beidou positioning and navigation system by 2035.
  • The first of China’s major Guowang Constellation of global telecom satellites are launched.
  • 5G device shipments accounted for 88.1% of the total in December 2024, supporting the strong growth in the 5G segment.
  • Report update includes telcos’ operating data to December 2024, CAICT industry data updates to October 2024, CNNIC's 54th statistical report, updated Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, recent market developments.

Key companies mentioned in this report:

China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Broadcasting Network, China Tower, CITIC Networks, GalaxySpace. China Satcom, China Direct Broadcast Satellite, Guowang Constellation

Related Reports

Share this Report

TMT Intelligence

A platform to scale your intelligence tasks

Monitor critical insights with our AI-powered Market Intelligence Platform gathering and analyzing intelligence in real time. With AI trained to spot emerging trends and detect new strategic opportunities, our clients use TMT Intelligence to accelerate their growth.

If you want to know more about it, please see:

TMT Intelligence Platform

Research Methodology

BuddeComm's strategic business reports contain a combination of both primary and secondary research statistics, analyses written by our senior analysts supported by a network of experts, industry contacts and researchers from around the world as well as our own scenario forecasts.

For more details, please see:

Research Methodology

More than 4,000 customers from 140 countries utilise BuddeComm Research

Are you interested in BuddeComm's Custom Research Service?

Hot Topics

News & Views

Have the latest telecommunications industry news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to BuddeComm's weekly newsletter.

Unsubscribe