Analyze the value entry points of the Internet of Things from the semi - annual reports of the three major telecom operators.

Recently, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom have successively released their semi - annual reports for 2025. All three operators mentioned at length the layout, achievements, and prospects in the AI - related fields in their reports. It can be seen that AI has become a consensus as a new focus for communication operators in the future.

Of course, as a relatively "traditional" business for operators, the Internet of Things (IoT) has also been mentioned multiple times. It has become an important foundation for operators, reflecting their basic connection capabilities and serving as an important contact point for a wider range of government, enterprise, household, and individual customers. Through the important entry point of the scale growth of the IoT, all information services can be delivered to various users.

Progress of the IoT Business of the Three Major Operators

The semi - annual reports of the three operators disclosed the progress in the IoT field from multiple perspectives, including the basic connection scale, the construction of digital capability bases such as networks and AIoT platforms, and some achievements in scenario empowerment.

In terms of connection scale, the IoT is the core driver of the total connection growth of operators

China Mobile disclosed that its total number of connections reached 3.815 billion, with a net increase of 145 million. The total number of connections includes mobile phones, wired broadband, IoT cards, household devices, and industry device connections. Among them, IoT cards, household devices, and industry devices all belong to the category of IoT connections. Although China Mobile did not directly announce the specific scale of IoT connections, the data can be inferred from the existing and previous data. At the end of June 2025, the number of mobile phone users was 1.005 billion, and the number of wired broadband users was 323 million. At the end of 2024, China Mobile's total number of connections was 3.67 billion, including 1.004 billion mobile phones, 315 million wired broadband, and 2.35 billion IoT connections. By inference, the number of IoT connections is approximately 2.487 billion, with a net increase of about 136 million. The net increase in IoT connections accounts for 93.8% of the net increase in total connections.

China Telecom's total number of connections is approximately 1.448 billion. Among them, the number of mobile phone, broadband, and Tianyi HD users is 760 million, with a net increase of less than 10 million. The number of IoT connections is nearly 688 million, with a net increase of 60 million. The net increase in IoT connections accounts for 85.8% of the net increase in total connections.

China Unicom's user scale of connections has exceeded 1.2 billion. Among them, the total number of mobile phone and broadband users has reached 480 million, with a net increase of more than 11 million. The total number of IoT connections has reached 690 million, with a net increase of more than 60 million. The net increase in IoT connections accounts for 84.4% of the net increase in total connections.

The net increase structure of the total connections of the three major operators (Source: Company financial reports)

It can be seen that currently, the IoT is the absolute main driver of the connection number growth of operators. This phenomenon is closely related to the fact that the growth of smartphone and broadband users has reached its peak.

The digital capability base has been further strengthened

Mobile communication base stations and AIoT platforms constitute the capability base for operators' IoT business. As of the end of June 2025, the number of 5G base stations in the country reached 4.55 million, effectively supporting the digital applications in many industries. Among them, the construction of RedCap base stations supported the medium - rate IoT connections. The AIoT platform is an important asset for each operator. Against the background of the development of artificial intelligence, embedding large - model capabilities into the AIoT platform has become an important direction.

At the end of June, China Mobile had cumulatively opened more than 2.599 million 5G base stations, with a net increase of 187,000. China Mobile also stated that the number of RedCap stations has exceeded 732,000, achieving continuous coverage above the county - level across the country and effectively expanding the coverage in rural areas and indoors.

China Telecom mentioned that it comprehensively deepens co - construction and sharing, continuously enhances the industry value, and builds a high - quality network with high, medium, and low - frequency synergy and 4G/5G integration. The total scale of 5G medium - and high - frequency base stations has reached 1.49 million, and the number of low - frequency base stations has reached 880,000. It continues to promote the upgrade of 5G - A network capabilities and has deployed 100,000 5G - A carrier aggregation stations and 600,000 Redcap stations on a large scale in more than 300 cities. China Telecom also emphasized the construction of an intelligent connection brain. Among them, the Tianyi AIoT platform has achieved the ability of billion - level scale, second - level perception, and control.

China Unicom proposed to deploy 5G - A on a large scale in more than 330 cities, continuously iterate and upgrade the 5G private network product system 4.0, launch the 5G industrial intelligent connection private network all - in - one machine, continuously strengthen the leading edge of the IoT platform and chip - module technology, focus on building an industry - leading intelligent industrial Internet platform, and simultaneously research and develop the GeWu embodied intelligent platform.

Application scenarios emphasize intelligent services

Promoting the industry application of AIoT is the ultimate value manifestation of IoT services. China Mobile emphasized that in the To B field, it strengthens the AI + DICT service system. In the first half of the year, there were 1,485 signed projects for AI + DICT, and it jointly built industry large models with central state - owned enterprises in industries such as energy, water conservancy, and agriculture. In the To C field, it promotes the embedding of AI in all products and services. The total number of customers of "AI - enabled products" is nearly 200 million; it released the AI intelligent assistant Lingxi Intelligent Agent 2.0, with the number of monthly active customers exceeding 60 million; in cooperation with leading enterprises in the industry, it released the first batch of "new three items" of information consumption products such as AI intelligent terminals, intelligent robots, and intelligent connected vehicles, and the number of household IoT device connections increased by 17.1%.

China Telecom, relying on the intelligent connection brain, launched multiple intelligent agents, including the intelligent agent for the Internet of Vehicles, the intelligent agent for green energy conservation, the intelligent agent for resilient cities, and the intelligent agent for public services. Among them, the public service intelligent agent covers 450 million customers in water and gas, smart home, etc.

China Unicom particularly emphasized improving the scenario - based and differentiated service capabilities and the refined operation level of the IoT to achieve a double increase in market share and value. It maintains the leading advantage in the market of the Internet of Vehicles and ranks first in the new energy market share in the industry. In terms of empowering industries, as of now, it has built 7,500 5G factories and served more than 2,000 medical institutions.

The value accounting of the IoT is constantly evolving, and its driving effect on various businesses is increasing

It is worth noting that for the statistics of the revenue caliber, China Mobile divides it into two directions: IoT connection revenue and IoT information revenue. Among them, the IoT connection revenue belongs to the first curve of business revenue, with a growth rate of 6.7%, and the IoT information revenue belongs to the second curve of business revenue, with a growth rate as high as 23.9%.

In August last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Promoting the Development of the Mobile Internet of Things towards 'Intelligent Connection of All Things'". In the part of "Optimizing the Value Evaluation Method", it proposed that basic telecommunications enterprises should comprehensively evaluate the overall value of the mobile IoT, reflect the connection value of business carriers such as mobile IoT cards, hardware terminals, and software platforms, as well as the driving value for the growth of businesses such as computing and storage, and scientifically and reasonably reflect the value of the mobile IoT business.

The data released by the Mobile Internet of Things Development Alliance shows that in 2024, the comprehensive revenue of China's mobile IoT reached 4.5271 billion yuan. Among them, China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom had revenues of 501.9 million yuan, 2.6299 billion yuan, and 1.3953 billion yuan respectively.

Under the requirements of the "Notice on Promoting the Development of the Mobile Internet of Things towards 'Intelligent Connection of All Things'", various institutions have conducted in - depth research and further refined the classification of IoT revenue. This time, China Mobile divided the IoT - related revenue into IoT connection revenue and IoT information revenue, which is in line with the spirit of the policy document of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In the past few years, although the connection scale of the IoT has grown rapidly, the revenue per user (ARPU) brought by a single connection has been declining. Therefore, the growth rate of the overall connection revenue is not fast. The proportion of connection revenue in the IoT value system is relatively low, and the connection revenue alone cannot reflect the value of the operators' IoT. The IoT information service revenue accounts for a higher proportion and is also in a high - speed growth channel.

Of course, compared with connection revenue, it is more difficult to define IoT information services. In the scope of information services for users, it includes the comprehensive results of multiple technologies, and some revenues driven by the IoT need to be calculated. As can be seen from the above, IoT connections have become the core driver of the total connection growth of operators. Through these constantly increasing connections, operators can obtain more customer contact points, break down the barriers between the operators' capability systems and customer needs through the entry point of connections, and provide more abundant products. This may be the more important value of the IoT.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Internet of Things Think Tank" (ID: iot101), author: Zhao Xiaofei. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.