China Mobile, the largest operator in the world, signed up 6.7 million 5G users in the space of three months, with 74,000 base stations deployed in 50 cities by end-January, C114.net reported.

The operator along with rivals China Telecom and China Unicom launched 5G services at the end of October 2019.

Qin Jian, a VP at China Mobile, told the news outlet the operator plans to accelerate deployment over the remainder of 2020, though stopped short of stating goals for either users or base stations and noted the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak could impact plans.

Last week, the operator said its Beijing subsidiary slowed installation of base stations as many property owners wouldn’t give workers access to buildings.

It reportedly installed 24,000 5G base stations in January.

The subscriber numbers quoted would place China Mobile as the largest 5G player in the world. In November 2019 it set the aggressive target of signing up 70 million 5G users by end-2020.

Operators in South Korea, which launched 5G services in April 2019, ended December with a total of 4.67 million subscribers, with 1.2 million added in the final quarter of the year.

KT claimed 71,000 5G base stations at that point.