According to the indicator-achieving status of the communication industry in the first quarter of 2022 issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China, the number of mobile phone users in China had amounted to 1.661 billion as of the end of March, with a net increase of 18.2 million from the previous quarter and a year-on-year growth of 3.8 percent.
Accordingly, the mobile phone penetration rate further rose to 117.6 percent, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.3 percentage points. This figure is far higher than the global average of 102.9 percent (data source for 2021).
By the end of March, there had been 10.04 million mobile phone base stations in China, breaking the 10 million mark and far outperforming the rest of the world. Among them, nearly 1.56 million 5G base stations have been put in use, accounting for 60 percent of the global total.
In addition, fixed-line subscribers maintained a slight growth of 1.03 million this quarter, amounting to 182 million in total, and contributing to 12.9 percent of the fixed-line penetration rate.