China will see roll out of 5G mobile phones as early as next year, as mobile handset makers Xiaomi and Oppo have completed the connection of 5G signaling and data links.

Xiaomi's President Lin Bin posted a photo on his microblog Monday, where a phone with thin bezels revealed its interface. Looking closely at the signal strength indicator, the "5G" icon is clearly visible.

Later the company announced its successful test of 5G data connections on Xiaomi phones via official account on Sina Weibo, which, it said, laid a solid foundation for officially launching 5G phones next year.

The photo's background showed "NR5G", or 5G New Radio (5G-NR), which is part of the official 5G standard made by telecommunications industry authorities such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP.

Last week, Oppo first claimed its accomplishment on connection of 5G signaling and data links based on commercial mobile phones. The connection is carried out on a pre-commercially available 5G smartphone developed on the basis of Oppo R15.

Liu Chang, president of the research institute at Oppo, said: "The connection of telecom signal and data links is prerequisite for reliable communication on 5G mobile phones. The test will promote the maturity of 5G smartphones, and lays down a solid foundation for us to release fully commercial 5G products in 2019."

Both Xiaomi and Oppo adopted 5G NR n78 band, which is one of the first and most widely used bands in the world and has great significance for the commercial application of the first batch of 5G products.

5G networks offer faster speed and more reliable connections. In theory, the download speed through 5G networks is more than ten times faster than that through 4G.

Mobil phone giants like Samsung, Huawei and Vivo also race to be first to market with the new technology.

Vivo said on Thursday that the company has basically finished the software and hardware development for commercial use of 5G smartphones on the basis of its new handset Vivo NEX, and its 5G mobile phones are going to test with network devices.