On October 31, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile launched 5g package tariff, which also means that China officially ushered in 5g business.
However, in the 5g era, operators give up the price war in the 4G era, and the price and traffic call content of the 5g package tariff system of the three companies are almost the same. Future competition or network coverage, quality and service.
In terms of 5g mobile phones, the data shows that the domestic 5g mobile phone shipments from January to September 2019 are 787000. With the launch of 5g package, 5g mobile phones are expected to start to usher in the outbreak period at the end of this year.
Operators end package price war
On October 31, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile announced the launch of 5g commercial. The 5g package rates of various companies have also been announced.
Comparison of 5g packages of three major operators
However, according to the 5g package rates announced by the three major operators this time, the price system and package contents have little difference. In terms of individual user packages, the 5g packages of China Unicom and China Telecom start from 129 yuan, with a maximum of 599 yuan, a total of 7 gears, and the package system is more detailed; China Mobile starts from 128 yuan, with a maximum of 598 yuan, with a total of 5 gears. The 5g packages of the same price range of the three operators contain little difference in traffic and calls. At the same time, the three operators all adopt the way of differentiated pricing according to the network speed, and the 5g packages of different price ranges will enjoy different network speeds.
This is in sharp contrast to the 4G era. In the fierce competition of 4G era, operators have launched low-cost 4G packages in order to compete for users. For example, the Tencent Wang card, ant Bao card and Ali Bao card launched by China Unicom in conjunction with Tencent and Ali significantly reduced the threshold of 4G package, and included a large number of directional app traffic, attracting hundreds of millions of users.
But it also makes operators into a fierce price war. Especially with the promotion of the Ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT) in the policy of increasing speed and reducing fees, all three major operators, without exception, have seen an increase in the number of users and an average increase in the use of each user's traffic, but the traffic revenue has not increased or even declined. In the previous semi annual report, the three major operators have seen a decline in revenue, and China Mobile even suffered a rare decline of nearly 15% in net profit.
Wang Zhiqin, vice president of China Academy of information and communication, pointed out in an interview that with the gradual saturation of the domestic communication market, the growth rate of revenue in the telecommunications industry continued to decline. The current traffic business model of operators is difficult to maintain, so they need to innovate business model.
The 5g package is an attempt for operators to start from traffic management to value management. On the one hand, it provides different network speeds for users of different gear segments, on the other hand, it also introduces its own characteristic applications and membership rights.
China Telecom has launched five 5g applications, including Tianyi Ultra HD, Tianyi cloud game, Tianyi cloud VR, Tianyi cloud computer and Tianyi cloud disk; China Unicom has launched 5g video membership privileges, such as VR, 4K ultra clear, AR, video RBT, and music / reading privileges, such as VOR reading and VOR music; China Mobile has launched 5g play bag, video RBT, reading and travel privileges, and 5g terminal purchase Machine coupons and other rights and interests.
However, 5g package also faces some challenges in the early stage.
On the one hand, the price threshold. Although the threshold from 128 yuan is lower than that of 190 yuan previously stated by executives of operators, most of them still think that the threshold is a little higher from the feedback of netizens. In a survey of 20 thousand people on Weibo, only 6.2% of the netizens said they wanted to change 5g package, 38.2% thought the price was too expensive to change, 21.2% would consider changing it after the price was reduced, 34.5% said they could not change it and hoped that 4G would not slow down.
5g package user survey
However, the three operators have launched corresponding tariff discounts for old users to reduce the threshold of using 5g for old users. Industry insiders also pointed out that according to the law of 4G era, with the construction cost of 5g network reduced and gradually improved in the later stage, the threshold of 5g package is expected to further decline.
On the other hand, 5g coverage is a problem. The first 5g service is only available in 50 cities. According to the data previously released by the Ministry of industry and information technology, 86000 5g base stations have been opened nationwide, and only large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou have achieved 5g network coverage. It is expected that by the end of the year, more than 130000 5g base stations will be opened nationwide, and the coverage will be further improved.
5g mobile phone is expected to turn on the tide of change
Main 5g mobile phones in China
In fact, the threshold of 5g package is not only the package price, but also the price of 5g mobile phone.
Domestic mobile phone manufacturers are very radical in 5g mobile phones, among which the typical representatives are vivo and Huawei, which also gives the two manufacturers a certain first mover advantage. According to data released by Guojin securities, as of September this year, the sales volume of vivo's 5g mobile phones was the first, while Huawei was the second.
In August, vivo launched its first 5g mobile iqoo pro. And the price of 5g version is set at 3798 yuan, far lower than the previous price expectation of 5g mobile phone; later, vivo launched its second 5g mobile phone nex 3 in September, with the starting price of 5698 yuan for 5g version.
The release of 5g package, vivo said, undoubtedly, it has a positive impact on the popularization and promotion of 5g process. At the same time, the release of 5g package will further release the potential of vivo 5g mobile phone sales. Just yesterday, vivo announced a limited time discount of up to 400 yuan for iqoo Pro 5g version, which means that 5g mobile phones can be purchased at a minimum price of 3398 yuan at present.
Sina Technology learned that vivo's third 5g mobile phone is also coming, using Samsung's exynos980 chip. According to people familiar with the matter, the chip is jointly developed by vivo and Samsung, integrating 5g modem into the platform, which is an integrated 5g SOC chip, and supports both NSA and SA modes. The next generation of the vivo X series product line x30 may be equipped with the chip, which is expected to be released in December this year.
Another Huawei launched mate 20 x 5g in July this year, and officially launched it in August. In September this year, Huawei's second 5g mobile mate 30 series 5g version was released, officially launched on November 1, synchronized with the launch of 5g package. In October this year, Huawei's third 5g mobile folding screen product mate X was released, but this product is not for consumption, and the price is as high as 16999 yuan, which will be released on November 15 Limited sales from.
The other two domestic manufacturers Xiaomi and oppo are relatively cautious. Xiaomi launched its first 5g mobile phone, Xiaomi 9 pro, in September, with a price of 3699 yuan; oppo announced that it would launch Qualcomm dual-mode 5g mobile phone in December.
Before the official launch of 5g package, 5g mobile phone is still waiting for the outbreak. According to the data released by China Academy of communications, 72000 5g mobile phones were shipped in July 2019, 219000 in August 2019 and 497000 in September 2019. From January to September 2019, 787000 5g mobile phones were shipped in China.
He Gang, President of Huawei's consumer cell phone product line, thinks that 5g has reached the node of commercial scale, and 5g cell phones will break out at the end of this year in China.
Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, predicted that by the end of this year, the 5g base stations of the three major operators will be built at the level of 100000-150000, and the 5g network coverage will reach a relatively good level by the third quarter of 2020. With the maturity of the network, the price of 5g mobile phones is expected to drop to 2000 yuan in the third quarter of 2020, when 70% - 80% of mobile phones in the market will switch to 5g mobile phones. At the latest 3 years, 5g network is expected to reach the current 4G network coverage level.
In fact, the maturity of 5g network and 5g mobile phone complement each other. 5g mobile phones continue to go on the market to accumulate 5g users, which will push operators to speed up the construction of 5g base stations; while the commercial use of 5g package also urges mobile phone manufacturers to launch more 5g mobile phones, known as the x30 of vivo, the V30 of glory, and the high pass dual-mode mobile phones of oppo by the end of this year.
2B business will become a new blue ocean for operators and mobile phone manufacturers
The huge capital investment in the early stage of 5g base station construction has deterred the operators who are already in the dilemma of growth.
On the one hand, the construction cost of a single 5g base station is much higher than that of a 4G base station, and the electricity cost is expensive; on the other hand, because the coverage of 5g base station is smaller than that of 4G base station, to reach the coverage level of 4G network, more base stations need to be built.
Ding Yun, President of Huawei BG, believes that in 5g construction, operators should use money on the cutting edge, quickly identify value areas, improve the efficiency of network construction, and obtain the best investment income. 'what you invest is what you build, what you build is what you use. '
But in his view, it is more important to achieve business success in both B2C and B2B. Operators used to focus on individual users, but in the age of 5g, they should start to explore the business model for government and enterprise users, and combine 5g with the digitalization of qianhang Baiye.
Operators are already taking action.
Just one day before the announcement of 5g package business, China Telecom held 5g + industrial Internet Summit Forum and released China Telecom Industrial Internet open platform. According to Chen Zhongyue, deputy general manager of China Telecom, in the industrial Internet practice conducted by China Telecom and CSCEC steel structure, 5g innovative application has reduced the internal cost of the enterprise by more than 40 million yuan, and the new business growth point has brought 160 million yuan of economic benefits every year.
It can be predicted that the three operators will return to the growth track in the 5g era. On the one hand, they will rely on 2C's business model transformation, but 2B's business model construction is the top priority.
This is also true for mobile phone manufacturers.
In the past two years, the capacity of China's smartphone market has continued to decline. Under the bottleneck of growth, on the one hand, mobile phone manufacturers are seizing the incremental opportunity of personal exchange brought by 5g, and on the other hand, they are exploring the opportunity of government and enterprise market. 5g's integrated application in all walks of life will also give birth to a new business model, in which mobile phone manufacturers are an important part.
In fact, the government and enterprise market has become one of the focuses of mobile phone manufacturers such as vivo and Xiaomi. Vivo has been planning to enter the mobile phone market of the government enterprise industry since 2016, and then established the business department of government enterprise; Xiaomi officially launched the government enterprise service in August 2018. Liu Hong, vice president of vivo, said recently: 'breaking through the channels of government and enterprise is an important strategic direction of vivo for a long time in the future. '
This is a new blue ocean to be developed. With the release of 5g package and the continuous acceleration of 5g business process in China, 5g industry chain including operators and mobile phone manufacturers will also usher in new development opportunities in the original 2C and 2b new markets.