China's telecom sector registers stable growth in Jan-Oct

BEIJING - China's telecommunications industry maintained steady expansion in revenue in the first 10 months of 2022, with emerging businesses such as cloud computing posting rapid growth, official data showed.

The combined operating revenue of the sector stood at over 1.32 trillion yuan ($185 billion) in the January-October period, rising 8 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Emerging businesses such as big data, cloud computing, internet data centers and Internet of Things registered a rapid revenue increase during this period. The emerging business revenue of China's three telecom giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- jumped 33.1 percent from a year earlier to 256.3 billion yuan.

Specifically, revenue from cloud computing and big data soared 127.8 percent and 59.3 percent, respectively, in the first 10 months, while that from data centers logged an increase of 12.7 percent.

China's 5G network development has continued to advance. The number of 5G base stations reached 2.25 million by the end of October, a net increase of 825,000 compared to the end of 2021.