The Zhitong Finance App learned that on October 28, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the economic performance of the communications industry for the first three quarters of 2026. In the first three quarters, telecom business revenue totaled 1.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%. The total telecom business volume, calculated at constant prices for the previous year, increased 7.3% year over year. The overall operation of the communications industry is stable, the total volume of telecommunications services is growing steadily, the construction of new infrastructure is progressing in an orderly manner, the scale of users such as 5G, gigabit, and the Internet of Things continues to expand, and mobile Internet access traffic continues to grow rapidly.
The original text is as follows:
The economic performance of the communications industry in the first three quarters of 2026
In the first three quarters, the overall operation of the communications industry was stable, the total volume of telecommunications services grew steadily, the construction of new infrastructure progressed in an orderly manner, the number of users such as 5G, gigabit, and the Internet of Things continued to expand, and mobile Internet access traffic maintained a relatively rapid growth rate.
I. Overall operation
In the first three quarters, telecom business revenue totaled 1.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%. The total telecom business volume, calculated at constant prices for the previous year, increased 7.3% year over year.
Figure 1. Cumulative growth rate of telecom business revenue and total telecom business volume
II. Development of telecom users
The number of gigabit users continues to expand. By the end of September, the total number of fixed Internet broadband access users of the three basic telecom companies reached 709 million, a net increase of 18.25 million over the end of the previous year. Among them, there were 678 million fixed Internet broadband access users with an access rate of 100 Mbps and above, accounting for 95.6% of the total number of users; 265 million fixed Internet broadband access users with an access rate of 1000 Mbps and above reached 265 million, a net increase of 26.45 million over the end of the previous year, accounting for 37.4% of the total number of users, an increase of 2.9 percentage points compared to the end of the previous year.
5G users are growing rapidly. By the end of September, the total number of mobile phone users of the three basic telecom companies and China Radio and Television reached 1,854 million, a net increase of 26.67 million over the end of the previous year. Among them, the number of 5G mobile phone users reached 1.32 billion, a net increase of 116 million over the end of the previous year, accounting for 71.2% of mobile phone users.
Figure 2 5G mobile phone user situation
Mobile IoT end users are growing rapidly. By the end of September, the three basic telecom companies had developed 3.117 billion mobile IoT end users, a net increase of 229 million over the end of the previous year. The number of Internet TV (IPTV, OTT) users reached 407 million, a decrease of 1.029 million from the end of the previous year.
III. Telecommunication service usage
Mobile internet traffic maintained a relatively rapid growth trend, and the DOU value remained high in June. In the first three quarters, cumulative mobile Internet access traffic reached 336.2 billion GB, an increase of 17% over the previous year. By the end of September, the number of mobile Internet users reached 1,638 million, a net increase of 27.99 million over the end of the previous year. In September, the average household mobile Internet access traffic (DOU) reached 23.89GB/household/month, up 12.5% year-on-year, and 0.85GB/household/month higher than at the end of the previous year.
Phone call volume continues to drop. In the first three quarters, mobile phone inbound call time was 1.4 trillion minutes, a year-on-year decrease of 6.9%; landline callers completed 42.02 billion minutes, a year-on-year decrease of 17.3%. In the first three quarters, the national mobile SMS business volume fell 10.5% year on year; mobile SMS business revenue fell 11.8% year on year.
IV. Status of communication capabilities
The total length of optical cable lines has increased steadily. By the end of September, the total length of optical cable lines across the country reached 76.73 million kilometers, an increase of 3.1% over the previous year. Among them, access network optical cables, local network relay optical cables, and long-distance optical cable lines account for 60.5%, 38%, and 1.5%, respectively.
The construction of gigabit fiber broadband networks is progressing steadily. By the end of September, the number of Internet broadband access ports nationwide reached 1,273 billion, a net increase of 22.43 million over the end of the previous year. Among them, the number of optical fiber access (FTTH/O) ports reached 1,232 million, a net increase of 21.11 million over the end of the previous year, accounting for 96.7% of Internet broadband access ports. By the end of September, the number of 10G PON ports with gigabit network service capabilities reached 33.4 million, a net increase of 1.779,000 over the end of the previous year.
5G base stations account for 40%. By the end of September, the total number of 5G base stations reached 5.254 million, a net increase of 416,000 over the end of the previous year, accounting for 40% of the total number of mobile base stations and an increase of 2.4 percentage points compared to the end of the previous year.
5. Regional developments
All regions are speeding up the penetration of gigabit subscribers. By the end of September, the penetration rates of fixed broadband access users of 1000 Mbps and above in the East, Central, West and Northeast regions were 36.7%, 38%, 38.7% and 33.2%, respectively, up 2.1, 4.1, 2.6, and 4.2 percentage points from the end of the previous year; 5G mobile phone user penetration rates were 70.5%, 72.2%, 71.3%, and 72%, respectively, up 5, 5.7, 5.4 and 5.5 percentage points from the end of the previous year, respectively.
Mobile Internet access traffic in all regions maintained double-digit growth. In the first three quarters, mobile Internet access traffic in the East, Central, West and Northeast regions reached 143 billion GB, 77.79 billion GB, 95.37 billion GB, and 201 billion GB respectively, up 18.5%, 15.1%, 16.3%, and 17.1% year-on-year.
This article was edited by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Zhitong Finance Editor: Chen Siyu.