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The pilot period has ended, and the virtual operators are coming

  

Hong Kong advanced anti DDoS server On January 26, it was reported that the two-year pilot period of mobile communication resale business had ended. The new role of virtual operator (hereinafter referred to as virtual business) had also experienced the first round of market baptism, and the number of mobile resale users exceeded 20 million. As an important link for private capital to enter the telecommunications industry, in the eyes of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, this two-year answer sheet "basically meets expectations". But this is far from the goal of the virtual merchants. Where will the virtual merchants go in 2016?

Virtual business users exceeded 20 million

The catfish effect is emerging

At the 2016 Mobile Resale Business Global Development Summit held yesterday and the debate on virtual operators in Taihu Lake, Xie Yuqi, director of the Policy and Standards Division of the Information and Communication Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, introduced the latest development of virtual operations in China. By the end of 2015, the number of virtual operation users in China had reached 20.5 million. In particular, more than 3 million new users have been added every month in the last three months. Since the first batch of enterprises were licensed on December 26, 2013, a total of 42 enterprises have obtained virtual operation pilot licenses. Since the birth of the first virtual operator segment 170 mobile phone users on March 31, 2014, 39 have been officially assigned numbers, and 7 enterprises have more than one million users. Among them, the number of fastest users has exceeded 4 million.

What do you think of this transcript? Xie Yuqi pointed out that the mobile resale pilot basically reached the expected goal. She said that in the past two years, the mobile communication resale business dominated by private capital has generally achieved a smooth start, which has made a favorable exploration for the next stage of formal commercial use. In particular, she said that more tolerance and understanding should be given to the new issue of resale.

Xu Lidong, director of the telecommunications industry research department of Thayer Planning Institute of China Information and Communication Research Institute, pointed out that after two years of development, resale enterprises' innovation and attempts in communication services, business bundling, cross-border integration and other aspects have achieved good market results, and the catfish effect has begun to emerge. "The number of users is not the goal of the pilot, but mainly to find and solve problems and create a more perfect ecological environment, which has basically been achieved."

Zou Xueyong, secretary-general of China Virtual Operator Industry Alliance, believes that the two-year pilot program has enabled the new role of "virtual business" to grow rapidly. Virtual merchants' treatment of mobile resale business has changed from the initial confusion to a clearer positioning based on the enterprise's own advantages, no longer for the purpose of issuing numbers.

The loss curse is broken

Homogeneous competition can only be a dead end

However, the number of 20.5 million subscribers accounts for 1.5% of the total number of mobile subscribers in China, which is only a drop in the bucket of the three major operators. Chen Yan, CEO of Snail Mobile, said frankly that it was a pity that everyone did not reach the expected sales volume.

As a new role, virtual merchants are expected to be a breakthrough for private capital to enter the communications industry. After two years of development, the industry mentality has changed significantly. The pilot project was very hot at the beginning, and the virtual merchants were sought after by all forces. However, as various problems were exposed, the industry turned to calm.

The pilot performance of 42 virtual businesses also differed greatly. Leyu Communication and Bus Online suffered setbacks, and even technology also encountered problems to shrink and adjust business. Although the growth rate of section 170 is fast, the foundation is too thin. In the process of rapid growth, virtual merchants are experiencing "growing pains". Everyone is burning money collectively. How to find a healthy profit model has become a common pain point.

However, the good news still came, and the dilemma of losing money and making money has been broken. Wang Xianshu, CEO of Bus Online, said yesterday that Bus Online has made profits, with gross profit exceeding 10 million yuan in 2015. It is reported that Bus Online has invested nearly 150 million yuan in the field of mobile resale. Previously, Jiang Zhixiang, Chairman of Share Communications, told the Beijing Morning Post that the company has entered a healthy development track and is expected to achieve profitability in 2016.

However, for most virtual merchants, profit is still a long way to go. In the opinion of Chen Jinqiao, Secretary General of the Telecommunication Economic Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the vision of virtual merchants must not be limited to the traditional telecommunications market. Homogeneous competition can be said to be a dead end. Differentiated competition is the biggest experience and consensus learned by virtual merchants in the past two years. "Whether so many pioneer enterprises will become martyrs depends on the speed of transformation."

Full liberalization in 2016

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is formulating commercial policies

According to the deployment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the mobile communication resale business pilot has been completed at the end of 2015, and is planned to be fully opened to private capital in 2016. However, from the pilot "guerrilla warfare" to the comprehensive "mobile warfare", the virtual merchants and many private capital forces who intend to enter the industry are waiting for commercial policies.

Xie Yuqi revealed that at present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is working hard to study and formulate official commercial policies on the basis of comprehensive summary and evaluation, and strive to introduce them as soon as possible. "As the competent department of the industry, creating a good market environment for resale enterprises is the focus of our official commercial policy."

Chen Yan, CEO of Snail Mobile, hopes that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will provide more policy support for the development of virtual businesses, and that the basic operators will be more open, inclusive, and share development, so as to create market-oriented soil for virtual businesses.

Fu Liang, an independent telecom analyst, pointed out that if a business model could not be found, half of the pilot enterprises would be eliminated from the market in 2016. The differentiation among leading enterprises will become more and more obvious. However, Wang Xianshu believes that the differentiation of virtual merchants will indeed accelerate this year, but no one will fall behind. In his opinion, after early exploration, everyone has found the North.

In Xu Lidong's view, the market environment for resale business will be better and better. Recently, the Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Adjusting the Wholesale Price of Mobile Communication Resale Business was issued to solve the problem of "reverse selling of wholesale and retail", which has plagued the development of virtual merchants. From the perspective of the industry, this is a positive signal, and the market environment will be more and more favorable to the virtual merchants. Xu Lidong expects that in 2016, the number of new mobile resale users will reach more than 40 million, and the market share will reach more than 3%.