The 2020 edition of the GSMA’s Mobile Economy series said Chinese users also have the highest willingness to pay more to upgrade to the next-generation mobile network, with 78 per cent willing to pay a premium for 5G services, compared with 60 per cent and 57 per cent for the US and the world respectively.

According to a GSMA survey conducted in early January, nearly 50 per cent of Chinese respondents said they planned to buy a 5G smartphone as soon as they were available.

On the enterprise side, although many businesses around the world believe that 4G is “good enough”, China is a “clear exception” in this regard, thanks to early partnerships and 5G trials by the country’s three large telecommunications carriers.

China’s telecoms carriers push to complete 5G network roll-out amid coronavirus crisis

Even as early as the last quarter of 2018, Chinese companies were showing more interest in 5G network slicing, edge computing and low latency services than the rest of the world, the report said.

“We’ve seen similar trends in other consumer research,” said Yang Guang, director of service provider research at Strategy Analytics. “This might be driven by the development of the Chinese mobile internet ecosystem and the underdeveloped [digitalisation] of the traditional industry.”

China and the US are locked in a titanic battle over leadership in the 5G race, with the winner likely to reap billions of dollars worth of economic benefits. With peak data rates up to 100 times faster than current 4G networks, 5G has been held out as “the connective tissue” for the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous cars, smart cities and other new mobile applications, establishing the backbone for the industrial internet.

5G has gained significant traction over the past year supported by an expanding roster of devices and growing awareness among consumers. GSMA’s report said that 46 mobile network operators in 24 markets had launched commercial 5G services as of January 30 this year. One in five mobile connections is forecast to be running on 5G networks by 2025.

South Korea, the US, Australia and the UK launched initial commercial 5G services in the second quarter of 2019, while China, the world’s largest mobile market, granted commercial 5G licences to the country’s three telecoms network operators and the nation’s cable network giant last June.

China faces delays in 5G roll-out due to coronavirus

“The mobile operator worldwide investment forecast will be more than a trillion dollars over the coming years, focused on rolling out advanced networks to serve both consumer and enterprise customers,” said Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA. “Over the last 12 months we have seen the 5G ‘hype’ make way for reality.”

However, the novel coronavirus outbreak has led to delays in the installation of 5G base stations, which has set back China’s timetable for rolling out the next-generation wireless infrastructure.

The Beijing subsidiary of China Mobile said it has postponed installations of base stations because of the outbreak, as many property owners did not allow access for the necessary construction work, according to a report by Chinese newspaper Economic Observer last month.

5G construction plans in 2020 will “definitely be affected” by the epidemic, Beijing Mobile said.

Separately, China leads in the ownership of smart home devices around the world, including smart televisions, speakers, security cameras and lighting. The US ranked second, but it trails China in every category, according to the report.

Globally, IoT connections for smart manufacturing will grow fourfold between 2019 and 2025 to over 1.3 billion connections, which will be largely driven by China as it aims to become a global leader in the industrial economy, according to the report.

Yang said this year’s coronavirus outbreak will also help push 5G applications in the long run. “The epidemic created new demand [such as] consumer demand for gaming, video and online education, and enterprise demand for cloud services, which generate higher requirements for mobile networks and will help promote the development of 5G services,” he added.

5G is forecast to contribute US$2.2 trillion to the global economy by 2034, with key industries such as manufacturing, utilities, and professional and financial services benefiting the most from the new technology, the GSMA report said.