The performance released by China Mobile shows that the number of IoT users in 2021 has exceeded 1 billion to 1.049 billion, but such a huge number of users has only brought 11.4 billion revenue, less than a fraction of the contribution of mobile phone users, it seems that the industry is not realistic to expect the trillion scale of the Internet of Things.
First, the huge difference between IoT users and mobile phone users
According to the Internet of Things user data released by China Mobile, it can be inferred that the average ARPU of Internet of Things users is only 0.9 yuan, which shows that the consumption level of Internet of Things users is too low.
In the same period, China Mobile's mobile phone users per capita ARPU more than 50 yuan, 5G package users ARPU is as high as 82 yuan, because the ARPU of 5G users is much higher than the OVERALL mobile phone user ARPU, so in 2021 its per capita ARPU growth rate from negative to positive, changed the previous 4G era since the ARPU all the way down the momentum.
At present, The main source of revenue of China Mobile is still the 2C market, that is, mobile phone users contribute the vast majority of its revenue, and as 5G users drive mobile phone users ARPU to rebound, the proportion of revenue contributed by mobile phone users is still growing. In 2021, the revenue of 2C business reached 483.4 billion yuan, accounting for 57.0% of the overall revenue of 848.3 billion yuan.
In order to promote the diversification of revenue sources, China Mobile is actively promoting the 2B business. China Mobile's development of 2B business is mainly for the government and enterprise market and the cloud computing market, of which the government and enterprise market brought 137.1 billion yuan, which is also its largest 2B business; cloud computing business has the highest growth rate, more than doubling year-on-year, but bringing revenue of only 19.2 billion yuan.
The Internet of Things business was originally one of the 2B businesses actively promoted by China Mobile, but from the above data, it can be seen that the revenue brought by the Internet of Things business is even inferior to the cloud computing business that was later developed, and the huge number of users paid too much cost but only brought such a limited income, which has made China Mobile a little excited.
Second, why is the Internet of Things difficult to compare with mobile phone users
From the above data, it can be seen that the income brought by IoT users is only about one-fifth of that of mobile phone users, only about one-quarter of mobile phone users, and the Internet of Things does bring operators more than the number of mobile phone users, but why can't IoT users bring huge revenues as the industry expects?
In fact, the Internet of Things should also belong to the 2B market, especially for the private enterprise market. One of the most well-known applications of the Internet of Things should be shared bicycles, 2018 data show that the Chinese market invested in 23 million shared bicycles, but the contributing bicycle companies are generally in the loss, which forces them to reduce costs as much as possible, naturally it is impossible to provide operators with too high revenue.
In addition to sharing bicycles, meter reading, water meter reading is also one of the internet of things applications, ordinary consumer families also read meters once a month, electricity monthly expenditure is about 150 yuan, water fees are about 100 yuan, such public services can not bring too high income to operators.
In fact, for enterprises, controlling costs has always been their primary consideration, after all, the primary goal of enterprises is to survive, and whether they can effectively control costs is one of the factors of their survival, and the low cost paid by today's Internet of Things users just proves this.
Obviously, now the Internet of Things has developed as rapidly as the industry expects, operators have also made every effort, but unfortunately it is far from the trillion scale they expected, the scale of 2B applications such as the Internet of Things is limited after all, can not support operators, the development of operators still have to rely on mobile phone users, and the focus of operators today has obviously refocused on mobile phone users, after all, this is a business that can bring real income at the moment.
In fact, when the industry speculated about the development of the Internet of Things market, it should be expected that the 2B market could not develop too much, after all, the company's considerations were completely different from personal consumption, especially for Chinese manufacturing, the cost is the most priority consideration, one of the reasons why Chinese manufacturing can rise in the global market is that the cost is low enough, and now the development of the Internet of Things market proves this.