Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: my country's number of number portability users has reached 26 million

Today, at the press conference on the development of industry and information technology in the first quarter held by the State Council Information Office, Zhao Zhiguo, spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Information and Communications Administration, introduced that the total number of mobile phone users in my country has remained basically stable. As of the end of February this year, the total number of mobile phone users in the country was about 1.592 billion, a slight decrease from the historical highest level of 1.601 billion in October last year. Preliminary analysis shows that there are three reasons:

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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.

Zhao Zhiguo pointed out that although there have been slight changes in users recently, we believe that the number of mobile phone users will remain relatively stable overall in the future, and a slight increase or decrease is a relatively normal trend of change.