Two big Camp games mobile Internet

As more and more people use such free communication tools as micro-letters, the business conflicts between telecoms operators and internet makers are also beginning to show.

Micro-Letter: Registered users more than 300 million

Recently, there are news that the three telecom operators and Tencent on the micro-letter OTT negotiations, or will OTT business supervision and charges. Although Tencent has responded that there is no plan for users to charge fees, the two camps will also be announced. The so-called OTT is the abbreviation for "over the top" in English, which means that internet companies have developed a wide range of voice, video and data services based on open Internet, bypassing operators. such as Tencent micro-letter and Microsoft's Internet telephony Skype and so on.

"Text messaging, voice intercom, sharing pictures, friends and shaking are all the micro-letters I use, and now most of my friends and colleagues use micro-letters to communicate and share messages." "Xiao Wang is a joint venture in the City of human resources management, according to Wang Statistics, the company more than 230 employees, more than 200 use of micro-letter," There is any notice, I will micro-letter shout, we all know. ”

Like Xiao Wang, more and more ordinary smartphone users are starting to use and favor micro-credit communication tools. Tencent launched the micro-letter to the beginning of this year, registered users have more than 300 million. Among the 1.1 billion of mobile phone users in China, Tencent's micro-letter penetration rate reached 27.3%. Last July, after the micro-letter increased the video, voice call function, Tencent is the industry dubbed the "fourth-largest operator," the name.

According to the Ministry of Statistics, 2012 National Mobile text messaging reached 897.31 billion, year-on-year growth of only 2.1%, an increase of 4 years the lowest. At the same time, micro-letter but with the rapid development of strong momentum, QQ users on the basis of the new increase in micro-letter voice message function, mail alerts, offline receive QQ messages and other integration functions, so in a very short period of time, significantly improve the user's stickiness to the product.

Operator: Traditional business suffers impact

Since the micro-letter and other chat tools to promote the use of smart phones, the original operators to bring rich profits of SMS, MMS, voice even domestic and international long-distance telephone and other traditional business has been greatly challenged. "Now smartphones are powerful, and many tools can replace phone calls, SMS functions, and use these applications, and also save on tariffs." In the interview process, most smartphone users said that they had used micro-letter, micro-blog, mobile phone QQ and other communication tools to replace the phone itself.

At the same time, the traditional business is being hit by the data disclosed by operators. China's mobile net profit rose 2.7% per cent year-on-year in 2012, a record low of nearly three years. Slow growth in voice business is the main reason. According to earnings, 2012, China Mobile voice business revenue of 368.025 billion yuan, an increase of 1%. In 2011, China's mobile voice business grew 5.9% per cent year-on-year. For telecom operators to slow performance, micro-letter, rice chat and other free communication tools can be said to have "unshirkable responsibility."

"Tencent rents bandwidth to operators at very cheap prices, and then provides users with free voice and data." In rough statistics, micro-letters now at least give operators billions of of the "loss", the trend continues, the operator may be the loss of tens of billions of revenue. "The industry analysis points out.

Current situation: There are still many obstacles to charge

In the face of the development of micro-letter Tencent and the impact on the business of the three major operators, there are news that the three major telecom operators have OTT business with the Tencent company many negotiations. In February this year, the "discussion on the impact of OTT business on telecom Operators", hosted by the Ministry of Industry, was attended by three operators, but failed to reach an agreement. At the beginning of March, the parties on the micro-letter, mobile phone QQ on the consumption of wireless resources and traffic, whether the establishment of a settlement system for discussion. It is further inferred that the micro-letter may have to start charging. In this respect, Tencent officials denied, and said the news is purely a rumor.

Yesterday, the reporter interviewed the city operators related personage, it said, the operator has not been to negotiate with Tencent, "although operators will consider charging, but there is no plan, the Ministry of Industry has not given a clear opinion." ”

Industry insiders also pointed out that, in the current situation, Tencent Micro-letter has a huge number of users, operators of the charging behavior, or will trigger a strong user dissatisfaction, and the operator to create negative feelings, so operators want to the micro-letter charges, it is difficult to achieve.

At the same time, the three major operators need to unify their views. At present, some operators want to force fees, and some operators hope that through the internal cooperation with Tencent, the micro-letter rationalization, operator opinion is not uniform also makes it difficult to mention the trip. Finally, the attitude of the Ministry of Information is another decisive factor, if the ministry allows operators to OTT voice service providers to collect fees, or have the right to "choke" OTT voice flow, data flow power, the operator is a significant positive, Vice will kill the fee plan.

Trends: cooperation or can achieve a win

At the same time as the two camps deadlocked, Tencent and operators also saw the prospect of cooperation. "Ott business is both a challenge and an opportunity for operators. China Mobile said that the current communication network is still the advantage of traditional operators, in turn, the Internet's many businesses rely on the network of telecommunications operators to carry out, which is the short board of Internet enterprises. At the same time, Tencent also said, "Our goal is to win with operators, together in the wireless internet era to provide more value-added services to users, can improve the user loyalty to operators, rather than a piece of the basic communications services." ”

"From the development of the Internet, mobile Internet is the trend of the future, mobile internet products and traditional telecommunications business integration will become more and more high." The industry analysis points out that despite the impact of OTT business on operators ' business and revenue, the emergence of such businesses has also led to changes in the communications industry chain, if such businesses continue to appear, and can be recognized by the market, it will be for operators to train users to use traffic habits, expand flow Management has a positive role. Based on this trend, the two camps of cooperation or will achieve a win, "operators can not do developers, internet companies can not spend huge sums of money to build mobile networks." Therefore, only cooperation can meet the needs of users, but also big market cakes. ”