Published : 2025-04-02
On April 2, 2018, China Mobile, together with ZTE, made the first 5G call in China, indicating that an industry worth over trillions of RMB has gradually begun to unfold.
At that time, both Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province participated in the 5G trials, and the first 5G call made during this trial took place in Guangzhou, where the first 5G test base station in China was opened even earlier.
On the morning of April 2, ZTE announced on Weibo: "ZTE, together with China Mobile Guangdong, has successfully made the first call based on the 3GPP R15 standard in Guangzhou. This signifies that ZTE has officially launched end-to-end 5G commercial system scale field sites, which will further accelerate the 5G commercialisation process."
The first version of the 5G international standard was completed in June 2018. On 6 June 2019, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued 5G licences to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Network, marking the official entry of China into the 5G commercial era.
According to statistics from the MIIT, by the end of 2024, the number of 5G mobile phone users in China had reached 1.014 billion, accounting for over half of all mobile phone users—2.3 times the global average.
