China continued to expand its 5G network this year, with 5G mobile phone subscriptions reaching 1.3 billion by the end of July, or 70.5 percent of the country's total mobile phone subscriptions.

The country's three major telecom operators and China Broadnet had a combined 1.85 billion mobile phone subscriptions by the end of July, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed on Friday.

The construction of new-type infrastructure advanced steadily in the first seven months of the year. The number of 5G base stations reached 5.15 million by the end of July, a net increase of 316,000 from the end of last year.

Mobile internet traffic grew rapidly during the period, reaching 258.7 billion gigabytes, up 17.6 percent year-on-year.