China's digital economy was worth over 45 trillion yuan ($6.72 trillion) in 2021, People's Daily reported on Sunday citing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Accounting for 39.8 percent of GDP, China's digital economy has grown rapidly and ranked second in the world for several years, the newspaper reported.

By the end of May, China had launched more than 1.7 million 5G base stations in total, the number of gigabit users had exceeded 50 million and 5G mobile phone users had exceeded 420 million.

In 2021, the online retail sales of physical goods in China jumped 12 percent year on year, reaching 10 trillion yuan for the first time, according to the MIIT. A total of 151.23 billion mobile payment transactions were made, up 22.73 percent from the previous year.