Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: The number of 5G package users has exceeded 350 million

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The State Council Information Office held a press conference at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, inviting Huang Libin, spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau, and Zhao Zhiguo, spokesman and director of the Information and Communications Administration, to introduce the development of the industrial communications industry in the first quarter of 2021 and answer questions from reporters.

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Zhao Zhiguo:

I will answer the question about the phone. According to the data currently available, the total number of mobile phone users has remained basically stable. As of the end of February this year, the total number of mobile phone users in China was about 1.592 billion, which is indeed a slight decrease compared to the historical highest level of 1.601 billion in October last year. Preliminary analysis shows that there are several reasons for this:

First, my country's mobile phone penetration rate has reached a relatively high level, and there is little room for growth, or it is limited. In 2020, my country's mobile phone user penetration rate reached 113.9 households per 100 people, far higher than the global average of 102.94 households per 100 people. Now there are 27 provinces and cities in the country with a mobile phone penetration rate of more than 100 households per 100 people.

Second, with the implementation of speed increase and fee reduction and the development of 5G nationwide, the unit price of network traffic in my country has dropped significantly, and 5G package users have been rapidly promoted. At present, the number of 5G package users has exceeded 350 million, and the unit price of 5G packages has dropped to 4.4 yuan per GB. Large amounts of traffic can meet the Internet needs of many people, and to a certain extent, many dual-card users who originally used secondary cards of traffic packages have switched to single-card users.

Third, number portability has been progressing smoothly. Currently, 26 million users have achieved number portability, which has reduced the demand for dual SIM cards across operators for many users and cancelled the number in the second card slot.

Although there have been slight changes in users recently, we believe that the number of mobile phone users will remain relatively stable in the future. A slight increase or decrease is a normal trend. Thank you.