BEIJING, Nov. 22 -- China is making steady progress in the construction of its 5G network in an effort to propel the digital and intelligent transformation of its real economy.

The country had built nearly 3.22 million 5G base stations by the end of October, accounting for 28.1 percent of all its mobile base stations, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China's three telecom giants -- China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom -- collectively had a total of 754 million 5G mobile phone users by the end of October.

The ministry's data also reveals the expansion of China's telecommunication industry in the first 10 months of the year. The combined business revenues of firms in the sector totaled approximately 1.4 trillion yuan (about 197.9 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.9 percent year on year.