China's 5G package users break 600 million, and mobile ARPU continues to rise

A week ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the "Economic Operation of the Communications Industry in the First Three Quarters of 2021." The report shows that as of the end of September, the total number of mobile phone users of the three basic telecommunications companies reached 1.64 billion, a net increase of 41.85 million from the end of the previous year. Among them, the number of 5G mobile phone terminal connections reached 445 million, a net increase of 247 million from the end of the previous year.

In terms of users, as of September 30, 2021, China Mobile’s total number of mobile customers was approximately 956 million. In the third quarter, there were a net increase of 10.2 million mobile customers. The number of mobile customers continued to grow; 5G package customers reached 331 million, 5G The number of online customers reached 160 million, and the customer structure continued to be optimized. In the first three quarters, China Telecom’s mobile subscribers increased by 18.64 million, continuing to lead the industry, reaching 370 million. 5G package subscribers had a net increase of 69.04 million, reaching 156 million, with a penetration rate of 42.1%; similarly, China Unicom was in the lead. In the third quarter, there was a net increase of 9.742 million mobile billing users to 315553 million, and a net increase of 66.115 million users of 5G package to 136945 million. From the data disclosed by the three companies, we can ascertain that China's 5G package users have exceeded 600 million.

In addition, thanks to the accelerated development of 5G, it has effectively boosted the ARPU of mobile billing users. It is reported that China Mobile's mobile Internet traffic reached 90.8 billion GB in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 39.1%, and the mobile Internet DOU exceeded 12 GB. In the first three quarters, mobile ARPU was RMB 50.1, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%; China Telecom’s total mobile Internet traffic in the first three quarters increased by 39.3% year-on-year, and mobile user ARPU was RMB 45.4, which continued to grow over the same period last year; China Unicom’s mobile billing users ARPU increased by 6.3% year-on-year to RMB 44.3. Revenue from mobile main business was RMB 123.324 billion, an increase of 5.8% over the same period last year. The three operating ARPUs continue to rise, proving that the industry is sending us a positive signal.

Two lines in the 2B2C field, with outstanding achievements in family, government and enterprise affairs

In March of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Dual Gigabit Network Coordinated Development Action Plan (2021-2023)" which aroused strong public concern and brought a three-year "window period" for dual Gigabit. The "Action Plan" clearly plans that by the end of 2021, the gigabit optical fiber network will have the capacity to cover 200 million households, and more than 600,000 5G base stations will be added. The three operators continue to output and make great strides in implementing the "dual gigabit" network coordinated development action plan.

In terms of home business, China Telecom focuses on full-scenario digital life, leverages the advantages of cloud and network integration, and creates a "three gigabit" high-quality universal connection service of 5G + optical bandwidth + WiFi6. In the first three quarters, China Telecom’s fixed-line and smart home service revenue reached RMB 85.498 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. Wired broadband users increased by 9.11 million to 168 million, and broadband access revenue reached RMB 56.896 billion, a year-on-year increase. 6.8%, the broadband access ARPU reached RMB 38.8, which maintained a rebound from the same period last year. Smart home income increased by 30.3% year-on-year, driving the comprehensive broadband ARPU to RMB 46.1, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.

China Mobile insists on quality-driven broadband leadership, content-driven TV leadership, and application-driven smart home leadership, maintaining a double increase in household market volume. As of September 30, 2021, the total number of China Mobile's wired broadband customers reached 235 million, with a net increase of 25.03 million in the first three quarters, of which 21.64 million household broadband customers were added. In the first three quarters, the wired broadband ARPU was RMB 34.8. This was a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, and the comprehensive household broadband ARPU was RMB 39.8, a year-on-year increase of 10.7%.

China Unicom has also continued to consolidate the core capabilities of the smart community and smart Wojia platform, promote the digital rural service cloud platform, and continuously strengthen the differentiated competitiveness of broadband services. In the first three quarters of 2021, China Unicom's fixed-line broadband subscribers increased by 6.903 million, reaching 92.998 million. Revenue from fixed-line broadband access reached RMB 33.341 billion, an increase of 3.9% over the same period last year.

Not only in the ToC field, the three major operators have also achieved "acceleration" on the ToB track. In terms of government and corporate affairs, China Telecom deeply integrates digital economy elements and emerging information technologies, and encapsulates atomic capabilities with 5G, Tianyi Cloud and security as the core, stimulating strong market demand, 5G business models continue to be enriched and mature, and benchmark projects are widely replicated ; China Mobile has also continued to promote the integrated development of "cloud + network + DICT" in government and enterprise affairs, and the government and enterprise market has a strong growth momentum. In the first three quarters, China Mobile’s DICT business revenue reached RMB 48.9 billion, maintaining rapid growth; China Unicom seized the needs of economic and social digitization, networking, and intelligent transformation, and actively leveraged its resource endowment advantages to continue to empower government, enterprise, and family customers , To promote the pan-integrated development of innovative business and basic business. It is reported that in the first three quarters, China Unicom's fixed-line main business revenue reached RMB 97.146 billion, an increase of 9.1% over the same period last year.

Digital intelligence innovation and development "top the lead", new business has become a new point of force

It is worth noting that in the financial reports announced by the three operators, words such as digital intelligence, innovative technology, and technological innovation appear very frequently. With the blessing of 5G, traditional communication services alone no longer meet the operators' development strategies. In recent years, the development of new services has gradually become a new force for operators to transform and develop.

In the first three quarters of 2021, the digital business of China's telecommunications industry maintained rapid growth, with revenue reaching RMB 74.09 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%, and revenue scale and market share remained industry-leading. In the first three quarters, China Telecom’s R&D expenses were 2.937 billion yuan, an increase of 29.7% over the same period last year. The main reason was that the company strengthened technological innovation, increased the introduction of high-tech talents, and strengthened the research and development of core technologies such as cloud network integration and 5G. It is reported that China Telecom will take the A-share listing as an opportunity to push the "cloud to data transfer" strategy in depth, expand comprehensive intelligent information services with customers as the center, promote key technological breakthroughs and new generation technology reserves, and build core technological innovation capabilities. And seize the current period of important strategic opportunities, strive to transform the development and growth mode, and build it into a service-oriented, technology-oriented and safe-oriented enterprise.

In the first three quarters, facing the complex internal and external environmental challenges, China Mobile firmly grasped the opportunity of accelerating the development of economic and social digital transformation, and in accordance with the overall deployment of the development strategy of creating a world-class "power building", the overall business performance was improved and the industry's leading position was solid. Maintain high-quality development. In the last quarter, China Mobile will continue to follow the strategic deployment of creating a world-class "power building", promote digital and intelligent transformation, achieve high-quality development, and achieve good growth in revenue from communications services throughout the year.

In the field of innovative business, China Unicom takes digital innovation as the lead, develops in-depth and thorough application products in key industries, and creates a differentiated competition of 5G+ABCDE (artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, edge computing) integration and innovation Advantages: Build an innovative business capability system, centering on capability platformization, R&D intensive, product standardization, and integrated delivery independence, and build independent capabilities to create unique innovative competitive advantages in the digital economy era. In the first three quarters of 2021, China Unicom's industrial Internet business revenue was RMB 40.925 billion, an increase of 25.3% over the same period last year. In the future, China Unicom will fully unleash its endowment advantages in the mixed-reform and aggregate industrial ecology and lead digital transformation. Through the two-wheel drive of market and innovation, China Unicom will focus on improving the service capabilities of new generation information infrastructure construction, further improving the level of market-oriented operations, and accelerating digital transformation. Steps to comprehensively shape the new advantages of differentiated development, and strive to achieve a new leap in high-quality development.