Seize the Moment: Accelerating 5G Prosperity

Since starting its commercial rollout, 5G has experienced tremendous growth. In just three years, it has achieved the progress 4G made in five years, helping carriers enter a positive business cycle.

With Huawei's GUIDE business blueprint, carriers can create their solid foundation for 5G success by focusing on five areas: Gigaverse Initiative, Ultra-automation Speed Up, Intelligent Computing & Network as a Service, Differentiated Experience On-demand, and ESG — More Bits, Less Watts.

5G early movers have already capitalized on the business opportunities of 5G, achieving commercial success by monetizing multiple metrics when connecting people and things, and empowering industrial digitalization.

In terms of connecting people, user experience is becoming a key driver of revenue growth. This is creating new pricing structures based on metrics like speed, latency, and uplink rates. For example, one Thai carrier has designed an experience-centric 5G plan that offers users more service privileges. This has boosted 5G ARPU by over 10%.

Additionally, 5G is driving the rapid development of IoT, creating hundreds of billions of new connections. In addition to connecting people and things, 5G is also empowering industrial digitalization. High-quality connectivity and new services, like leased lines and private networks, are helping carriers expand into the B2B market, giving them a second growth curve.

stc, for example, has worked with industry customers to apply 5G to smart cities, campuses, and ports, offering differentiated experiences. These efforts have transformed stc into a digital service provider with a diversified business portfolio.

Chinese carriers have also offered 5G leased lines and 5G virtual private WANs that are designed for industries requiring wide and high-quality coverage. They also provide local private networks that can guarantee SLAs in scenarios like smart factories, ports, and mines. This has helped Chinese carriers increase 5GtoB revenue by over 200% in 2022.

To achieve commercial success in 5G, carriers will need to grow their 5G user base and increase DoU. A common theme exists among leading carriers: 5G user penetration rate and share of 5G data traffic both exceed 30%.

HKT, for example, offers VR, AR, and 4K content, and 24-bit lossless music services, which increases both their 5G user penetration rate and share of 5G data traffic to 30% in 30 months. These efforts have accelerated their 5G development.

Short-form video apps can also tap into 5G to push videos at higher bit rates and deliver better user experience. For example, China Mobile Hubei optimized network coverage to improve 5G user experience, increasing the proportion of short-form videos at 720p or higher by 6%. This has generated a 5G traffic increase of 12.4%

We can already see three trends clearly unfolding: All connections and services will evolve to 5G, and so will all bands. Huawei is committed to constantly innovating in technology, so that we can help carriers make the most of every band, hertz, and watt. Together with carriers and partners, we've built a prosperous 5G industry. And going forward, we'll keep working hard to help lay the groundwork for 5.5G.

Li Peng
Corporate Senior Vice President
President of the Carrier BG
Huawei