China's 5G base stations top 4.83 million by end of 2025

BEIJING -- China's telecommunications sector maintained steady growth in 2025, with the country surpassing its development goals for 5G and gigabit optical network infrastructure set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), official data showed Wednesday.

By the end of 2025, the number of 5G base stations in China reached 4.838 million, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This translates to 34.4 5G base stations per 10,000 people, exceeding the national planning target by 8.4 units.

The sector's total business volume, calculated at the previous year's prices, rose 9.1 percent year on year. Telecom business revenue totaled 1.75 trillion yuan (about $250.8 billion), up 0.7 percent.

Notably, emerging businesses such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and data centers accounted for 25.7 percent of the total revenue.

In the realm of technological innovation, China's declarations of 5G standard-essential patents accounted for 42 percent of the global total. The country also achieved significant progress in verifying 6G system architecture and other key technologies.

In terms of infrastructure, China has achieved gigabit optical network access in every county, as well as 5G coverage in all towns and more than 95 percent of administrative villages.

By the end of 2025, 5G-A (5G-Advanced) service coverage extended to more than 330 cities. The total length of the national optical fiber cable network reached 74.99 million km, while the number of data center racks provided by the three major telecom operators reached 938,000.

The user base continued to expand, with mobile phone subscriptions reaching 1.827 billion by the end of 2025, including 1.204 billion 5G subscriptions. Mobile IoT terminal users increased by 8.7 percent to 2.888 billion, with particularly strong growth in the Internet of Vehicles and public service sectors.

The ministry also highlighted the deepening integration of digital technology with the real economy. 5G and gigabit optical networks have been applied across 91 major categories of the national economy. The industrial internet now covers all 41 industrial categories.