China's telecoms sector sees steady expansion in first four months

TONG CHANGHUAI BEIJING - China's telecommunication industry logged a steady expansion in the first four months of this year, buoyed by emerging businesses, official data shows.

The combined business revenue of firms in the sector rose 7.2 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Of the total, emerging sectors like Internet data centers, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things saw their revenues increase 22.3 percent year on year, driving the revenue of the telecom business up by 4.3 percentage points.

The data also reveals the spread of 5 G services. By the end of April, the country had over 2.73 million 5G base stations, and a net increase of 73.08 million 5 G cellphone users in the first four months of the year.