(Yicai Global) July 15 -- Ericsson holds high expectations for China’s fifth-generation wireless network market, which is still among the best in the world, not only in the number of base stations, but also in its overall value, Zhao Juntao, president of Ericsson China, said yesterday, The Paper reported.

Stockholm-based Ericsson values the Chinese market for three reasons. First, the 5G ecosystem is very important and China has the most extensive. The US has fewer than 1,000 Internet of Things manufacturers, while China has 5,000 to 6,000. Second, the scale of the Chinese market is critical for the global 5G industry. Its market scale has already shown in the fourth-generation era, and the number of 4G base stations in China accounts for half of the world’s. The nation will also claim a large market share in the 5G era. For Ericsson, market size means business volume. Third, China has led global development since the 4G era and benefited global consumers and Ericsson believes this trend will hold in the 5G age, Zhao said.

Major Chinese operators China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have completed the purchase of 5G equipment and have chosen Ericsson as their network equipment supplier. The firm hopes to gain trust, play a role here, and share its global business experience with China, he added.

The number of 5G contracted users worldwide will top 190 million by year-end and reach 2.8 billion by the end of 2025, a mobile market report Ericsson released yesterday projects, at a time when 5G will cover nearly 65 percent of the world’s population and bear 45 percent of data traffic.

Revenue from the global digital transformation brought by 5G will reach USD1.5 trillion by 2030, per the report, while 5G digitization revenue will run as high as USD700 billion for its operators.

Chinese consumers are more optimistic about the development of new technologies, the report found, e.g. 79 percent are more willing to accept autonomous transactions, including unmanned vending and delivery machines and autonomous driving, as against a 55 percent world average. Also, 80 percent of Chinese virtual reality users believe that as everyone spends more time online, the virtual economy may have greater growth potential than physical goods, compared with 72 percent of global consumers.

Editor: Ben Armour