China commands a global lead on 5G as the country’s mobile network operators approach 1 million 5G base stations combined. 

China Mobile this week said it ended second-quarter 2021 with 251 million 5G customers. The world’s largest wireless carrier ended the quarter with 26.5% of its 946 million customers on a 5G package, including 127 million lines of services described as 5G network customers. The operator’s total 5G customer base jumped 65% year over year.

The country’s second largest operator China Telecom reported 131.5 million 5G package customers at the end of the quarter, which means 36% of the carrier’s 362.5 million customers were using 5G at the end of June. 

This rapidly accelerating rate of 5G adoption and promising level of enterprise use spurred Forrester Research to conclude “2021 is the year that China becomes the epicenter of 5G innovations globally.”

The analysts note that China was primarily in the 5G inception phase prior to this year, but the outlook and rate of 5G deployment has grown significantly during the first half of 2021, particularly after structural economic slowdown amid the COVID-19 crisis pushed firms to speed up the adoption of 5G.

China’s trio of nationwide operators first deployed 5G service, quickly earning accolades as the world’s largest 5G network due to the country’s size and population, in late 2019.

China Telecom and China Unicom are pooling spectrum and base stations under a joint venture to jointly build and manage a 5G radio access network, but the operators are managing independent 5G cores. 

China Telecom said 460,000 of these co-built and co-managed 5G base stations were active at the end of the quarter, and that’s up from 380,000 base stations at the end of 2020. The carrier also reported almost $13.3 billion in aggregate capex savings for both operators on this 5G joint venture to date.

China Mobile reported 501,000 active 5G base stations at the end of Q2 and said it intends to have more than 700,000 5G base stations online by the end of the year.

Enterprises are among the beneficiaries of this proliferation of 5G infrastructure in China and many are embracing 5G to foster business agility and new or improved services.

“Leading Chinese enterprises in a range of vertical industries are already recording substantial business value through their 5G initiatives,” Forrester Research analysts wrote in a report. 

“From 2025 to 2030, Forrester expects that China will enter a popularization stage. With widespread 5G infrastructure rollouts nationwide and the maturation of 5G solutions, pioneers and technology leaders will proactively explore 5G-enabled business applications and 5G technology advancement,” the analysts explained.

Three strategic business objectives — mobile broadband, IoT, and new applications that require ultra-reliable low-latency communications — will fuel 5G enterprise adoption in China, according to Forrester Research. “On this journey, private 5G plays a key role together with other emerging technologies like computer vision, IoT, and commercial drones to drive digital transformation,” the analysts wrote.