China's telecom sector achieves sound performance in January-October

A visitor tries a tour guidance based on AR/VR effects at the booth of China Mobile during the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at Shougang Park in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2023. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

BEIJING, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's telecommunication industry saw steady expansion from January to October, buoyed by emerging businesses, according to official data.

The combined business revenue of firms in this sector totaled 1.42 trillion yuan (about 199 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.9 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Of the total, emerging sectors such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and internet data centers saw their revenues rise 20.5 percent year on year to 301.2 billion yuan.

Broadband internet services generated 219 billion yuan worth of revenue for China's three telecom giants -- China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom -- in the first 10 months, up 9.3 percent over the previous year.

5G technology continued steady expansion in the same period. By the end of October, China had 3.215 million 5G base stations and 754 million 5G users. By the end of October, nearly half of China's mobile phone users are 5G service subscribers.