The three major mobile operators in China have registered growing traction in the 5G industrial sector, with gains in revenue from deploying private networks for enterprises. According to China Mobile’s latest earnings release, uptake of 5G services, mobile cloud, digital content, smart home and related businesses drove 30% growth in digital transformation revenue, accounting for a quarter of total telecoms service revenue. China Telecom’s industrial service revenue increased by almost 20%, while industry internet revenue for China Unicom has grown 29%, accounting for 22% of service revenue.
As GSMA Intelligence analysis has highlighted, B2B is expected to be a key driver of revenue growth for operators in the 5G era, and China is showing clear evidence of that. The expansion of 5G for enterprises is happening worldwide, though. For example, in the UK, BT has expanded its collaboration with AWS to push development of IoT, cloud and edge offerings. Meanwhile, in India, Cisco is working with operators to expand 5G private networks, while Nokia recently announced that it expects investments in 5G private networks in the country to reach around $250 million by 2027.