Use SMS to counter WeChat? China Mobile Unicom teamed up with Tencent, why didn't Ma panic?

Editor/Zhao

Following the announcement of the commercialization of 5G at the end of last year, the three major operators finally joined forces again last week to publish a white paper on 5G messages on the Internet, and also specially found a group of mobile phone terminal manufacturers and chip manufacturers' platforms, which triggered doubts about the operator WeChat. Hot discussion.

The so-called 5G message is nothing new. It is actually a rich media (RCS) communication, which can be simply understood as an upgraded version of SMS. With the mobile phone as the user ID, it can provide functions like WeChat voice, text, pictures and videos. No need to install an App or add friends.

"I want to challenge WeChat with SMS." A netizen commented. The epidemic is pushing operators to accelerate the pace of change. According to the operating data released by operators in February, China Mobile decreased by 7.254 million, China Telecom decreased by about 5.6 million, and China Unicom decreased by about 660 1 10,000.

These changes are stimulating operators to find new growth points. The current situation is that 5G has not yet exploded. 5G messaging is considered as one of the potential explosive applications of 5G scenarios. But can 5G messages really challenge WeChat?

Partners gathered and concept stocks soared.

On the day of the release of the white paper, in addition to the vice presidents of the three major operators, industry chain executives including Huawei, Xiaomi, OV, ZTE and other mobile phone companies all attended. As a project promoted by the three major operators, the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain naturally dare not neglect.

At the terminal level, mobile phone manufacturers include Huawei, Xiaomi, Meizu, OV, Samsung and Lenovo. RCS-related functions will be supported in mobile phones one after another. On the chip level, Qualcomm and MediaTek will support the unified communication capability of RCS. At the system level, Google has enabled RCS in Android messaging applications in the UK and France.

It is reported that China Mobile is developing and docking commercial services with a number of partners, including banking, e-commerce, logistics, transportation and other industries, such as 12306, Ctrip and many other businesses have launched practical services. 5G messages are expected to be commercialized in early June.

5G messages can be targeted at individual users and enterprise users.

For ordinary users, without downloading the client, they can receive the 5G message at the native message portal of the mobile phone and other terminals. 5G message service makes information exchange between individual users more convenient. In addition to SMS, users can also send messages in various media and formats, such as pictures, audio and video, but there is no circle of friends like WeChat and WeChat official account function.

For governments and enterprises, public and commercial services can be delivered directly to end users by using 5G messages, and users can also search and select services in a way similar to an application store through the directory service function of 5G messages.

According to the cases demonstrated by operators, these public and commercial services are presented on the user's message interface in the form of rich media messages and interactive cards, and users can communicate with service providers or choose services at any time. With the help of 5G messages, users can easily talk to service providers from all walks of life in the message window; Industry customers and their users can also establish convenient intelligent service channels and get more user feedback.

In fact, RCS business is nothing new. It is a communication method proposed by GMSA (Global System for Mobile Communications) in 2008, which integrates communication services such as voice, message, status bar and location service, and enriches the customer experience of native applications of mobile phone systems such as calls, short messages and contacts. Through the RCS on the mobile phone, you can not only send text, pictures or videos, but also have interactive functions.

According to the official statistics of GSMA, as of 20 19Q4, 84 operators in 60 countries around the world have opened RCS services with more than 300 million monthly users.

However, RCS has not been developed in China market. One of the reasons is that the RCS technical route of each operator is not clear enough and the terminal support is not satisfactory.

Today, GSMA, together with the global mainstream operators, actively promotes the development of RCS. Q4 of 2065438+2009 formulated the Technical Requirements for 5G Terminals and Services (NG. 1 14), which included RCS as a necessary function. Operators finally converged from the early parallel technology route to the unified route, and reached a consensus on standards.

"Because the market environment and technology choices faced by global operators are quite different, it has encountered great challenges in promoting this solution to become a global unified standard." Huang Gengsheng, director of China Mobile Research Institute, told the media. The team first verified the advantages of the scheme through a large number of tests, providing data support for the promotion of the scheme, and then experienced nearly ten face-to-face international conferences and hundreds of telephone conferences, which lasted for three years, and finally upgraded the scheme to an international standard.

After the release of the 5G news white paper, RCS concept stocks rose collectively, and Monternet Group, Wei Bei Science and Technology, Shenzhou Taiyue and many other companies had daily limit, among which Shenzhou Taiyue had daily limit for four consecutive days. Whether things can be done or not, at least it has a miraculous effect on the capital market.

Can you beat WeChat?

Huaxi Securities reported that 5G messages can enable individual users to communicate with various service platforms and businesses, and it was repeatedly mentioned in the report that its function is comparable to WeChat. However, whether it is comparable to WeChat in function and whether it poses a real threat to WeChat are two different things.

Every time the challenger of WeChat appears, people will think of China Mobile's Fetion.

In May 2007, China Mobile launched Fetion, which was still dominated by QQ. However, after the launch of Fetion, it was very popular, and the number of users quickly surpassed Microsoft's MSN, with a peak of 500 million registered users and 90 million active users.

At that time, SMS in mobile phone was still a very frequently used function, 1 cent, while Fetion was free, and the SMS function could be realized only by consuming traffic. And as long as the acquaintances are all mobile phone numbers, they can be added as friends. Colleagues and friends can also form Fetion Group.

However, Fetion, once a smash hit, soon declined. People's Daily 20 13 wrote an article about why Fetion failed. The article specifically mentioned that Fetion's decline was due to the boss's thought: ideologically closed, not really for the sake of users, prohibiting users of competitors Unicom and Telecom from using it. Even non-Fetion users have to pay 5 cents for the reply message; Technically, Fetion based on 2G network can only send short messages in the early days, and it is still limited to the thinking of short messages and multimedia messages in the all-media era.

Another important reason is the emergence of WeChat. After constantly improving its functions and experiences, WeChat smashed the flawed Fetion to pieces. At the 20 19 wechat open class, Zhang Xiaolong also shared why wechat "replaced" short messages: when a platform only pursues the maximization of its own commercial interests, I think it is short-sighted and not long-lasting. When a platform can benefit people, it is crucial.

After the release of the 5G white papers of the three major operators, the capital market is unmoved. Tencent's share price was completely unaffected by the 5G news. Perhaps, as a netizen said, "As long as state-owned enterprises have no monopoly advantage, they can't do anything on the Internet."

As we all know, now WeChat has squeezed short messages into the awkward position of sending verification codes. But even so, SMS has its own uniqueness. No matter what kind of mobile phone it is, the phone and SMS functions are essential functions of the mobile phone, and there is no problem that users install it separately. In other words, SMS itself is a super portal.

Dong Xin, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that 5G SMS is an upgrade and innovation of experience and service. On the basis of inheriting the telecom service quality of short message service, 5G short message will bring customers new experiences such as multimedia short message, business short message, smart short message, interactive service, security and anti-counterfeiting, and realize "message as a service".

However, it should be noted that when spam messages have flooded, the communication relationship based on mobile phone numbers will make users uncomfortable. Imagine that others have to add friends to send WeChat. If the experience of 5G messaging is the same as that of texting now, it is theoretically easy to get the mobile phone number, and many strange information will greatly affect the user experience.

Fu Liang, a telecom analyst, also believes that the replacement of basic communication services by 5G messages is universal in nature, with difficulty in secondary development, long version upgrade cycle and less interactivity than apps such as WeChat.

From this point of view, 5G message should not undertake such a heavy mission, it is more like activating the traditional short message service.