China approached the milestone of 1 million 5G base stations after operators deployed the world’s largest standalone network, with China Telecom and China Unicom sharing more than 400,000 sites across the country, C114.net reported.

The country’s three major mobile operators lit 961,000 next-generation base stations and connected 365 million 5G-compatible devices by end-June, the news outlet reported citing comments by press secretary for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Tian Yulong.

In the first half of 2021, handset shipments in China reached 128 million, up 73.4 per cent year-on-year, Tian stated.

He claimed Huawei and ZTE together hold more than 50 per cent of global standards essential patents for 5G, the portal wrote.

China Mobile ended May with 222 million 5G package subscribers (those using the next-generation service but not always with compatible devices), while China Telecom and China Unicom had 124.5 million and 106 million respectively.