China's three main telco operators have built over 400,000 5G base stations, says ministry

China's three main telecommunications operators have built more than 400,000 5G base stations by the end of June 2020, the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) told a press briefing on Thursday.

The figure marks an increase from the 130,000 5G base stations constructed in the year 2019. The ministry has said in the past it expects to have built over 600,000 5G base stations in total by the end of 2020.

At the press briefing, MIIT Vice Minister Xin Guobin also said China will support infrastructure for battery swapping service for electric vehicles.

Nio Inc and BAIC BluePark are among China's automakers currently offering electric cars with swappable batteries.

(This story corrects to 2019 from 2020 in the first sentence of the second paragraph)

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and Yilei Sun; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Subhranshu Sahu)