Author | Lee thought
Produced by | Bullet Finance
Do you remember the era of "a text message for a dime"?
After smart phones gradually replaced traditional feature phones, mobile phone communication technology specifications have transitioned from 2G to 3G, and then to 4G, and now they have entered the 5G era. At the same time as technology is developing rapidly, mobile phone tariffs are becoming cheaper and cheaper.
According to the "Report on the Development Trend of China's Information Consumption (2020)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, as of August 2021, the average tariff level of mobile traffic has dropped from 22.3 yuan / GB three years ago to 4.1 yuan / GB, an overall decline of 81.8%.
At the same time, in addition to the three basic operators of mobile, Unicom and telecommunications, some private operators have also entered the communication track to inject new vitality into the innovation of communication services - the so-called private operators are different from the communication service enterprises outside the three major operators, also known as virtual operators.
On January 17, 2022, Xiaomi Mobile, a communication service brand of Xiaomi Group, announced that it will usher in a new brand upgrade, which will connect the majority of communication users with a new brand image and better services.
In fact, the low-key Xiaomi Mobile has quietly grown into a representative brand of China's private operators.
1. A private operator that is steadily moving forward
What is a private operator?
In layman's terms, it is a "new type of telecom operator" that cooperates with traditional operator communication resources to carry out telecommunications services. After cooperating with basic communication resources, private operators will carry out in-depth processing of communication services according to their own main business advantages, and finally provide communication services to consumers with their own brands and self-built customer service systems.
Taking Xiaomi Mobile as an example, its growth process is highly characterized by "Internet thinking", which can enable the Internet to empower the communication industry and establish a connection with consumers more quickly in channel services. At the same time, backed by Xiaomi, which has a "technology-driven" nature, it can also allow consumers to enjoy more diversified and personalized services in product design.
Graph /Photo Network, based on VRF protocol
Unlike many consumers' inherent impression that "private operators are unreliable and unsafe", the communication services provided by private operators are often based on the basic communication networks built by the three major operators, and the basic service quality guarantee is not a problem. In terms of security, after several years of "barbaric growth", private operators are also accelerating the upgrade and iteration of their security.
For example, Xiaomi Mobile attaches great importance to the investment in research and development, its R & D personnel account for more than 50%, and the self-developed "Greyhound Prevention and Control System" can effectively set up a trigger mechanism for abnormal behaviors such as anti-harassment and fraud for the front, middle and back links of opening the card to enter the network, so as to avoid the number being used for harassment fraud, spam SMS and other purposes.
Nowadays, whether in China or globally, the development speed, scale and quality of private operators are steadily advancing.
According to statistics, there are currently more than 1,100 private operators in the world. In the European and American markets, private operators account for about 10% of the mobile communication market, of which the Netherlands accounts for 14%, Germany 19%, France 10%, the United Kingdom 13%, the United States 7%, and Hong Kong is 8% - in the United Kingdom, the number of users of Tesco Mobile alone has reached 3 million.
At present, there are about 40 private operators in the domestic market. Among them, Xiaomi Mobile, founded in 2015, has countless product circles and has served 5 million users by the end of 2021.
So, in the context of fierce competition between the three traditional operators, what changes will the emergence and growth of private operators bring to the market?
2, the real multi-win situation
In fact, the birth of private operators has brought a real sense of "multi-win situation" to the market.
The operator industry is an asset-heavy industry, whether it is the stage of building a base station to do network coverage, or the operation and maintenance management of the usual communication network, it is necessary to have a large amount of financial support at all times. Private network operators have much lower infrastructure investments, avoiding large-scale capital deposits. Therefore, for traditional operators, cooperation with private operators will help alleviate the pressure of marketing costs, expand user groups, and save more resources to develop their core business.
The emergence of private operators will further provide richer personalized services. As a product of the refinement of the division of labor, private operators have a better understanding of the needs of users, and can adopt different operational strategies for specific user groups to fully meet market demand and explore market potential. For consumers, it is bound to be happy to face more choices and more "volume" manufacturers.
In terms of the market, private operators can bring more development space to the communication industry. They often take the market segment as the entry point, providing the ultimate products and services to meet the needs of users to the greatest extent.
Taking Xiaomi Mobile as an example, in September 2015, Xiaomi Mobile turned out to be a success, and quickly captured a large number of enthusiasts with the characteristics of "worry-free and money-saving".
Xiaomi Mobile eliminates the trouble of offline "running back and forth", and opens a card online throughout the process, which can be called a "0 threshold" operation. Moreover, Xiaomi Mobile will display the package clearly, reduce the user's understanding cost, efficient service, and realize the card opening in 3 minutes.
In addition, Xiaomi Mobile provides clear bills and free switching packages, the price is simple and transparent, the real user consumption at a glance, low price and affordability so that consumers can be satisfied to choose the package they want.
It is worth mentioning that Xiaomi Mobile's products provide 3-step back-to-network services, and the convenient and worry-free characteristics are also deeply in line with the consumption habits of contemporary young people.
On the whole, Xiaomi Mobile uses "simple" product logic to achieve "worry-free and money-saving" card demand, providing every young person with convenient, reliable, suitable packages and cost-effective, high-freedom service experience, just like Xiaomi's "touching people's hearts, generous price" features, which is the key to becoming the first choice of more and more young consumers.
In fact, obtaining millions of users with more extreme products and services is not the end of Xiaomi Mobile, and there is still a lot of imagination in the future of private operators.
3. The future of private operators: an outlet not to be missed
Many consumers still have a misconception: Xiaomi is a "mobile phone manufacturer".
In fact, Xiaomi has invested more than 400 enterprises of various types, and its ecological chain is huge and perfect. Xiaomi Mobile is in it, as a private operator, it will play a role that cannot be underestimated.
On the one hand, Xiaomi Mobile can enhance the interconnection ability of communication infrastructure, do large-scale in the communication industry chain, improve and even feed back the xiaomi main business ecology; on the other hand, Xiaomi Mobile is also one of the user entrances of the Xiaomi ecology, which can be described as both "technology and channel" characteristics.
Under the core strategy of Xiaomi Group's "mobile xAIoT", Xiaomi Mobile's business has grown steadily, with a compound annual revenue growth rate of 34% from 2018 to 2021.
In addition, Xiaomi Mobile can be combined with all the hardware of the Mijia ecological chain to provide rich value-added services. In the future, Xiaomi Mobile will also be able to innovate and expand around the ecology of Xiaomi's main business - for example, typical applications in smart cities and smart homes, and there will be opportunities in the massive Internet of Things market to open up.
Seniors Wireless, for example, has pioneered unique services in the field of the Internet of Things. The private operator, which focuses primarily on telemedicine, offers services that enable customers to contact doctors, talk to doctors, talk to doctors, and conduct examinations on landlines, mobile phones, or any wireless device — based on its high-definition video medical services that it promotes, allowing doctors to diagnose and treat patients in a timely manner "face-to-face" and pre-treat patients.
It is worth mentioning that Yang Jinhong, general manager of Xiaomi Mobile, believes that "the personal communication market is still the foundation for development, and the Internet of Things will become a new channel for the development of the industry." "With the advancement of 5G, not only private operators will usher in a new market, the entire digital economy, technology industry will stand on an unprecedented outlet, and this outlet, Xiaomi company will not miss."
At present, the road ahead for private operators is still in the stage of exploration. The advent of the digital era has allowed the market imagination of private operators to be infinitely expanded, and how to seize the era of 5G, Internet of Things, and intelligence is the decisive factor for private operators to go more stable and long-term.
Where is the future for Chinese operators? Xiaomi Mobile, which is backed by the Xiaomi ecological chain, may soon give the answer.