Bus WiFi: the monetization capability will usher in a big test

Bus WiFi: the monetization capability will usher in a big test

The fierce competition in the bus WiFi industry has finally come to an end. The reporter learned yesterday from the China WiFi Industry Alliance that with the launch of large domestic cities such as "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen", the market structure of the bus WiFi industry has been basically determined, and the hot spot in Beijing (16 WiFi for short) the two companies have signed contracts with 0.15 million and 46 thousand respectively, ranking first in the industry. Bus WiFi is about to enter the next stage of painstaking operation, and its monetization ability will usher in a big test.

According to public information, 16WiFi has signed a public transit WiFi operation agreement with more than 60 cities in China. The number of contracted vehicles has reached 0.15 million, and the market share of cities above municipal level has exceeded 50%. VIFI has around 46000 urban public transit vehicle WiFi services in 20 major cities in China. In addition to the two companies, there are also a number of companies that have been moving around. Juwan network said that it has covered more than 20 cities and has invested 30 million yuan in public transit WiFi, which has achieved Profit and Loss Balance. E house purchase company said it has signed up for 12 cities and has deployed 2000 units in Changsha. Shanghai wencong announced that it has covered Songjiang, Fengxian, Qingpu, Jiading, Jinshan and other Shanghai districts and counties, and installed more than 3000 vehicles.

In the just-completed bidding for the Wi-Fi management rights of the three major bus companies in Guangzhou, 16WiFi won the Wi-Fi management right for all 9322 vehicles, and became the only WiFi operator that comprehensively logged on to "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is understood that there are about 70 thousand buses in four first-tier cities of "north, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen", and 16 WiFi currently occupies 60% of the buses. There are a total of 24 thousand buses in Beijing, which are exclusively operated by 16 wifi. There are 17 thousand vehicles in Shanghai, 4 thousand WiFi in Pudong, and Shanghai wencong in suburban routes such as Songjiang and Jiading, about 10 thousand vehicles are still waiting in Puxi; there are 14 thousand vehicles in Guangzhou, 12 thousand in 16WiFi, and about 2 thousand in remaining Guangzhou; there are 15 thousand in Shenzhen, 10 thousand in VIFI, and 2 thousand in 16WiFi, another 3 thousand vehicles are said to be in the hands of an out-of-business company.

"WiFi applications are regarded as the power source of the next 0.1 billion million market and a new portal for massive users," said Teng binsheng, vice president of Changjiang Business School and professor of strategy. He believes that in the commercial Wi-Fi field, which has a huge entry value, bus WiFi is more valuable due to its massive, high-frequency, and just-needed features. Data from the Ministry of Transport shows that the average daily number of passengers transported by national buses is as high as 0.214 billion. "Relatively fixed lines and groups, regular and frequent behavior, a lot of boring time in closed scenarios, free WiFi network ...... This makes user requirements more rigid, more frequently used, and more viscous ."

But what is the realization capability of public transit WiFi with high free banners? Can we achieve profitability and sustainable development? Some experts believe that "public transit WiFi is a high-traffic portal, but it is not a high profit", and some experts believe that "the profit model will become clearer and clearer ".

Fu Liang, an independent TMT analyst, told Caixin that public transit WiFi must form a scale effect to generate profit. The network coverage must be wide enough to generate user stickiness. "At present, most commercial Wi-Fi companies are engaged in mobile service-related businesses. In the future, they can develop into business models such as 360 and Baidu, become network endpoints, and provide software downloads and traffic services, the possibility of further extension is that they can also provide O2O e-commerce services."

Li xiaohuan, a science and technology commentator, pointed out that from the Competition Strategies of the three BAT companies in the free WiFi field, they all chose WiFi builders who invested in "heavy assets. Free WiFi is a good entrance, but there are too many entrances at the moment. It is not enough for users to enter the portal. They also need to leave their tracks behind to form a big data layout. "This is simply the uber thinking of the bus version, the Momo of the bus version", Senior internet analyst Xin haiguang is more optimistic about bus social networking, "you can make up your mind for a bus trip with the goddess every day, and finally have the opportunity to get close to the Goddess in mind ......"

Qiu chaomin, Chairman of 16WiFi, told reporters that as the largest WiFi construction and operation enterprise in the public transportation field in China, the company has tried multiple monetization methods, including advertising, traffic guidance, application distribution, game transport, e-commerce platforms, O2O, and big data. In the future, we will develop a series of applications suitable for closed and boring bus scenarios, several models are under development.

"For example, if we work with the local Metropolis Daily in major cities and hand over the local news channels to them to share traffic costs, this is much cheaper than printing paper. Win-win cooperation not only solves the problems of newspaper decline to transformation, but also solves the problems of operation in various cities. Now, newspaper groups in several cities are strongly interested, and some have signed contracts. For example, cooperation with video websites makes it difficult to watch videos with 3G or 4g during the trip. The local space cache of our hardware equipment solves this problem, as a result, various major video websites are talking about cooperation." Qiu chaomin said.