
Telecommunication in China
The development of telecommunications in China is roughly equivalent to the United States. Under the country code +86, there were a total of 1.91 billion connections in 2021. Among them were 1.73 billion mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.2 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 20.60 million webhosts, China is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 1.34 million of these, or about 6 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: China
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 223.49 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, China ranks 2nd in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 38.48 Mbit/second was significantly lower (47th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, China comes 6th with a download speed of 112.22 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 25 Mbit was enough for 4th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in December 2022 from 178 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in China from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in China 2000 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
All international calling codes
Distribution in 2021 | China Total | China percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 535.79 m | 37.94 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 180.70 m | 12.79 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 1.73 bn | 122.68 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |