China cemented its position as a global 5G leader, driven by significant operator investment and growing uptake, with adoption tipped to represent half of all the country’s mobile connections by 2025, a new GSMA report showed.

In the China edition of its Mobile Economy report, the GSMA said the rate of growth will be on par with other leading 5G nations, South Korea; Japan; and the US, with operator investment of more than $180 billion expected to be made in the country over the next five years.

The GSMA, which is publishing a series of reports as part of an annual week of programmes focused on the development of China’s mobile market, looked into topics including current 5G trends and the technology’s role in aiding Covid-19 (coronavirus) recovery efforts.

On the latter, the GSMA said China had been able to maintain a 5G leadership role despite the impact of the respiratory virus.

mmWave opportunity 
Following launch of commercial 5G services in October 2019, the GSMA’s report found operators had now built more than 160,000 compatible base stations covering more than 50 cities, as they aim to expand standalone coverage and capacity.

For the country to continue its 5G growth, the GSMA called for the assignment of mmWave spectrum, which will be crucial to increasing bandwidth and capacity to serve high-performance applications.

In total, mmWave 5G could contribute $104 billion to China’s GDP by 2034.

“Given the significance of manufacturing in China’s economy, industrial applications leveraging mmWave 5G present a great opportunity for China to drive economic growth,” GSMA stated.