China’s trio of mobile network operators collectively deployed more than 390,000 5G base stations by the end of June, according to earnings reports.

China Mobile, the market leader, said more than 180,000 5G base stations are now deployed in more than 50 cities, including deep coverage into some of the country’s coal mines.

China Telecom and China Unicom, which opted to pool resources to jointly build and manage a 5G radio access network (RAN), deployed approximately 150,000 5G base stations during the first half of the year, bringing their combined total to about 210,000 5G sites, according to China Unicom’s earnings report. The operators aim to reach 300,000 5G bases before 2021.

The “co-build co-share” agreement, which has been expanded to include 4G LTE and other technologies, is almost evenly split with China Unicom having built more than 100,000 5G base stations, and China Telecom deploying the remaining 110,000 5G sites. The operators’ combined 5G footprint also provides coverage in more than 50 major cities.

China Mobile’s parent company also inked a 5G co-construction and sharing agreement with China Broadcasting Network Corp. Ltd. during the first half of 2020.

While China’s 5G networks formed the world’s largest 5G network when they were activated in November 2019, and remain so today, the operators have fallen behind on the race to deploy a 5G standalone (SA) network. That framework, which separates 5G network traffic and operations from legacy 4G LTE infrastructure, is a critical difference-maker in delivering true 5G. 

T-Mobile US earlier this month activated the world’s first 5G SA network operating on a 5G core. China’s operators contributed to the standardization of 3GPP’s Release 16, which formalized the framework for a 5G SA core network, but their respective commercialization efforts are still under development. 

China Mobile said it has “worked to speed up the construction of the 5G SA core network to lay a foundation for achieving the scale commercialization of SA within this year.”

China Unicom Chairman and CEO Ke Ruiwen earlier this summer said the operator is also working to develop standards and new innovations for cloud and network integration on a 5G core, but declined to provide an update on the timeline for deployment. 5G SA is expected to reach all three of the country’s networks later this year.

China Mobile ended the first half of 2020 with 70.2 million 5G customers. China Unicom didn’t disclose its 5G customer count and China Telecom reports earnings next week.