The scramble for the three operators ' users: Pipelines are the only hurdle

This year's "5.17" World Telecom Day, China's three major operators resorted to the tricks, in addition to price war, is the custom terminal intelligent competition. Especially in the recent speculation of the fiery "thousand-yuan Intelligent machine" market, China Mobile, China Unicom, the Chinese telecom three operators have a strong enough to attract users.

The operator competes for "Thousand Yuan Intelligent Machine" the market behind is to the end user's grasp. In the mobile internet era, if the user resources are not occupied, operators will undoubtedly face the "pipeline" crisis again.

For operators, the current opportunity is that the traditional concept of the "low-end" of the thousands of smart machine market may be due to the new partners continue to change. Previously, the thousand-yuan intelligent machine market by Huawei, ZTE, Cool faction, Lenovo and other domestic manufacturers firmly occupy, then Samsung, HTC, Nokia and other international brands also began to launch the thousand-yuan intelligent machine, in order to achieve greater development.

Operator high subsidy betting "thousand Smart Machine"

"5 17" world Telecom Day as usual is the major operators to launch a variety of preferential activities to seize the market opportunity. Compared with the three thousand or four thousand-dollar high-end smartphones of the past, this year's 3G smartphones are clearly more populist, and some high-end brands are offering more practical handsets that meet the requirements of the operator.

Thousand-dollar Smart machine

May 11, China Unicom and Samsung Electronics jointly released the Thousand-Yuan Smart machine Samsung s6102e (parameter picture proofs evaluation) and S6352, the bare metal retail pricing is 1158 yuan and 1599 yuan, and can double SIM card. China Unicom will provide the two unicom custom mobile phone storage and purchase of two kinds of subsidy mode, consumers can enjoy the maximum to 0 yuan purchase subsidy concessions.

In addition to Samsung, Nokia also joined China Telecom to launch the first domestic WP7 mobile phone nokia 800 (parameter picture proofs evaluation) C (parameter picture proofs evaluation). HTC's market is broader, just released the new desire to work with the three major operators at the same time, the current price of about 1900 yuan.

The significance of the above international brand "disorderly enter" thousand Yuan smartphone market is, may change the user to the Thousand Yuan smartphone "difficult in the mainstream market to make a difference" view.

Another significance is that, as new models are listed to bring more cost-effective options for users, some high-priced mobile phone prices are starting to loosen. The most interesting thing is that China Telecom iphone bare metal price straight 500 yuan, the price is 4499 yuan. At the same time, other models of mobile phones such as Nokia lumia800c, Huawei C8850, such as price reductions are also 600~790 yuan.

Industry analysts, high-end brands are mainly by the Apple iphone squeeze, market focus and share are falling. On the other hand, cooperation with Chinese operators, using operators ' channels and subsidies, can expand market share and increase profitability.

There is no doubt that mobile phone brand manufacturers in the recent frequent push of new machines, or by the market demand for the promotion. A recent report by Ericsson shows that China's smartphone penetration rate is only 15%, but 32% of users have plans to switch smartphones (29 months). According to the Ministry of Information, the next two years, the national demand for smart phones about 278 million units.

At present, China's smart phones are only in the first-tier cities have been popularized, two or three-tier cities have not been excavated. From the data provided by the Cat Mall, the market share of low-end mobile phones is 76%, while the handset of 3000 yuan is only 6%.

Obviously, the thousand-yuan smart machine will be more favored, international brands and domestic brands of the positive competition will also accelerate the popularity of smartphones. Xiang, a telecoms expert, argues that full competition has brought benefits to consumers, but has put handset makers in a bind, and only operators are more willing to subsidize low-cost terminals.

The biggest winners of the smartphone popularity storm are chip makers and telecoms operators. Telecom operators are more popular, telecom equipment operating costs continue to decline, the number of users and tariffs also benefit.

3G as the main engine of growth

The latest earnings data of the three operators show that the revenues of China Telecom, China Mobile and Unicom reached 67.929 billion yuan, 127.445 billion yuan and 61.193 billion yuan respectively last year, increasing 15.7%, 7.8% and 24.8% respectively over the same period a year earlier.

With the high growth of 3G business, China Telecom and Unicom have a notable income increase.

China Unicom, which has paid a big price for subsidizing iPhone4, has a net increase of 9.827 million subscribers in the first quarter, with a total of 209 million households, of which a net gain of 8.841 million users has reached 48.86 million households, and it has achieved 1.007 billion yuan, with a significant growth of 594% over a year earlier. Unicom's revenues are picking up, compared with a sharp fall in net profits last year.

3G users have become the main driver of user growth, but also to China Telecom and Unicom to bring more opportunities. Industry analysts believe that the current quarter of China Unicom net profit soared, mainly thanks to the development of 3G business. Xiang, a well-known telecommunications expert and founder of the Flying Elephant Network, believes that China Unicom has invested a lot of subsidies on the iphone over the past two years, which has played a big role in changing its image, expanding its influence and striving for high-end users. But whether Unicom can get rid of its reliance on Apple will require further observation.

Registration vs Tencent reorganization: Data Business Scramble

Under the trend of triple-net convergence, the traditional data services of China Mobile, Chinese telecom and Unicom are becoming saturated.

Data show that 2012 domestic fusion communications Market size will reach 20 billion yuan. The rise of the data business has put telecoms operators at risk of being piped up so that they have to expand their business to other areas.

Carrier SMS business Revenue drops

May 14, China Mobile announced that the letter 2012 Dawn version will support the registration of different nets. By then, Unicom, telecommunications users can directly use mobile phone number registered to fly, and mobile, unicom, telecommunications users to send a letter to each other. The move is seen by the industry as a test for China Mobile to tap the mobile Internet market on an open platform.

Although in terms of revenue, mobile flying letter to its charging model has been a good return, but the contradictions are also highlighted. China Mobile's 2011 earnings show that the net profit for the year was 125.9 billion yuan, an increase of 5.2% per cent, with the first drop in SMS revenue.

The decline in SMS revenue corresponds to the explosive growth of instant messaging applications. Following the launch of the Grand network Kiki, Happy Net (Micro Bo) launched the flying Beans, millet technology launched rice chat, Tencent also launched in January 2011 micro-letter. Operators are also not to be outdone, in the second half of 2011, China Unicom's "Wo Friends", China Mobile "flying chat", "Wing chat" and other products have been unveiled.

Recently, a news of Tencent's imminent reorganization has made the future of micro-faith clearer. It is reported that in the new round of structural adjustment, micro-letter will become one of the three core Tencent, will be upgraded to the same status as QQ.

The communication pipeline is still a detour.

Industry insiders believe that the development of instant messaging operators is tantamount to "hand in hand", contradictory.

Yi, Secretary general of the Mobile Internet Industry Alliance, says operators are considering more about how to add value to their services. Their business development is also contradictory, on the one hand, the performance appraisal requests the short message income, but on the other hand launches the new business to occupy the short message market. In addition, operators in a monopolistic position, nature is not all business is accounted for, or should give private enterprises a certain space.

Yi said, "If the Internet industry instant Messaging development to the operator's business, it is difficult to say that operators will not fight back, after all, the control of the communications pipeline is still in the hands of operators." ”

"There is no doubt that internet companies are launching a series of instant messaging or social apps that will definitely affect the operator's SMS business," said Xiang, a telecommunications expert and CEO of the Flying Elephant Network, in an interview with the Daily economic news. However, even if the operator's SMS business is hit, but the data flow is growing, but also the revenue of another growth point.

Carrier technology upgrades: Another competition in the price war

The rapid growth of 3G users has also brought great challenges to communication networks. Three operators have to compete in price, service, terminal, but also in technology input.

It is reported that China Mobile LTE will further expand the scale of the network, 2013, through the new and upgraded two models, China Mobile LTE base station will be more than 200,000.

In addition, China Mobile has obtained the frequency bands of Hong Kong Fdd-lte and LTE, and will provide relevant commercial services in Hong Kong during the year. China Unicom in the domestic port construction is also speeding up, specific to the broadband and WLAN, China Unicom has built all kinds of broadband ports 3.5 million, 2012-year plan to add 900,000 broadband ports, of which fiber to the FTTH high rate of Austria than 80%.

China Telecom has put forward the development strategy of "broadband China, Optical Network City" last year, and it is expected that by 2012, China Telecom will add 25 million households with fiber-optic household coverage, reaching more than 55 million households.

Taking Shanghai Telecom as an example, the construction of optical network is also accelerating. Starting from May 17, in the urban area of Pudong, the newly installed users of the optical network will be installed within 48 hours, the end of this year in the city to promote the scope. At present, Shanghai Telecom has achieved 5.5 million optical network coverage, 1.7 million of citizens fiber-optic home, become "the first city of domestic optical network." ”

With the development of "Twelve-Five" planning of communication industry, fiber-optic broadband network will also usher in a fast-growing stage. Xiang that the network quality of operators will also become the focus of contradictions.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)