China had over 2.73 million 5G base stations by the end of April 2023, and secured 73.08 million 5G smartphone users in the first four months, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The combined business revenues of telecom firms totaled 569.9 billion yuan (about $80.5 billion), up 7.2 percent year on year,

Of the total, emerging sectors, such as Internet data centers, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, saw their revenues rise 22.3 percent, driving the revenue of the telecom business up by 4.3 percentage points, the ministry said.