(Yicai Global) Dec. 15 -- China will become a leader in 5G technologies, standards, industry and applications and a top player in the global 5G industry, and will commercialize a corresponding network by 2020, a Chinese industry insider predicted yesterday.

 Wang Zhiqin, vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) -- a telecommunications technology research unit directly affiliated to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology -- made these projections at an information and communications technology conference in Beijing yesterday.

 "In contrast to the 3G and 4G eras, China is a world-leading player in 5G commercialization in the 5G era," Wang said.

 China has proposed many forward-looking ideas in 5G concept and network architecture, Wang noted. During the release of the first version of 5G standards, China held more than 30 key positions and 23 percent of voting rights in the International Organization for Standardization -- with 30 percent of papers -- and led 40 percent of relevant projects, making it a world leader in the new network technology's standards.

 Countries around the world have accelerated 5G commercialization, Wang observed. The US and South Korea will deploy a fixed-5G wireless network this year and next and apply it to 5G-compliant devices by 2019, while China, Japan and Europe are on track to commercialize the 5G network by 2020, he added.

 The 5G chips will stage their debut in the first quarter of 2019 and truly commercialized mobile phones will hit the market in the second half of that year, Wang prophesied. Chinese companies will work to achieve breakthroughs in key 5G components and promote the applications and innovative development of 5G technologies, Wang concluded.