Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2024 - Li Peng, Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, delivered an important speech at the MWC24 Barcelona 5G Beyond Growth Summit held today. He elaborated on how operators can achieve business success in the 5G era, and looked forward to how 5G-A (5G Advanced) can further tap the potential of networks and create new growth opportunities for the industry.
Li Peng, Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service, Huawei.
Li Peng first reviewed the brilliant achievements of 5G commercial use in the past five years, and the number of 5G users in the world has exceeded 1.5 billion, and this figure has been achieved in only nine years with 4G. At the same time, 5G accounts for only 20% of the world's mobile users, but contributes 30% of mobile traffic and 40% of mobile service revenue, fully proving the business value of 5G.
2024 is the first year of 5G-A commercialization, and combined with the development of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies, operators will usher in huge business growth potential. Li Peng pointed out that global operators should seize strategic opportunities in four areas: building high-quality networks, realizing multi-dimensional experience monetization, continuously launching new services, and using generative AI to drive the mobile industry to be fully intelligent.
In terms of building a high-quality network, Li Peng emphasized the importance of network quality to business success. He said that a high-quality network can support rapid user migration and improve the user experience, so as to reap traffic dividends. More and more operators have begun to release strategic goals to build the best 5G network, taking the Middle East operators as an example, they have provided a high-quality 5G experience by building a massive MIMO network with nationwide coverage, driving the huge success of 5G FWA services, and the number of home connections has approached 3 million, becoming an important engine for operators' revenue growth.
In terms of realizing the realization of multi-dimensional experience, Li Peng mentioned that more than 20% of the world's 5G operators have adopted the rate billing model. For example, he said, Thai operators have launched 5G hotspot acceleration packages that allow users to subscribe on demand and time-sharing, which has increased the average revenue per user (ARPU) by about 23%. Chinese carriers have also launched an uplink experience guarantee for online anchors** to make the live broadcast experience more high-definition and smooth, which is welcomed by anchors, and the ARPU value has increased by more than 70%.
In terms of continuously launching new services, Li Peng said that new services such as new calls for consumers, cloud phones and glasses-free 3D are gradually gaining popularity. These new businesses provide users with a richer experience and more choices. At the same time, 5G is also being widely adopted by enterprise users, and in China, 5G private networks have been commercialized in more than 50,000 use cases in more than 50 industries. New capabilities of 5G-A, such as deterministic latency, precise positioning, and passive IoT, will create more opportunities for operators' B2B markets.
In terms of using generative AI to drive the comprehensive intelligence of the mobile industry, Li Peng cited IDC's ** data, pointing out that AI mobile phone shipments will reach 1700 million units, accounting for 15% of global smartphone shipments. The next generation of AI phones will have more powerful storage, display, and imaging capabilities, and will work together with AIGC applications to generate massive amounts of content, which will open up new growth opportunities for operators.
Finally, Li Peng said that Huawei is willing to work with global operators and partners to fully unleash the potential of 5G and 5G-A networks and stimulate new growth. "2024 is the first year of 5G-A commercialization, and we will work together to promote the collaborative innovation of 'network-cloud intelligence', promote the in-depth development of digital and intelligent transformation, prosper the industrial ecosystem, accelerate the positive cycle of 5G business, and embrace a more prosperous 5G-A era. He said.