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Rectify IDC Unicom's curettage

  

"In the first half of 2016, the main business income of the company stopped falling and stabilized," said Unicom in the interim financial report released a few days ago. Its latest decision is to cancel the roaming fee of the group's unified package from October 1.

bring disaster to the fish in the moat

Internet companies, including Pulse and Station A (AcFun), are "lying on their guns".

At the beginning of this month, Station A, a well-known domestic secondary website, was unable to access for two consecutive days, and users complained incessantly. On August 4, Station A posted an announcement on its official microblog, saying: "Due to the line fault of the operator, Station A was lying with a gun, which led to the website being unable to log in at present. The monkeys (staff) are trying their best to restore the website to normal as soon as possible! We apologize for the inconvenience caused to everyone."

Earlier, the industry communication platform with a large number of users was unable to log in for nearly 15 hours. Then Pulse also released an announcement on its official microblog: "Due to the interruption of the optical cable line in the computer room, Pulse APP is temporarily inaccessible." It is reported that the well-known CDN company Lan Xun is providing services for Pulse, and Lan Xun was disconnected because of this inventory of Unicom.

Then someone found that this sudden "movement" was very similar to the "traffic penetration" event of telecommunications six years ago. Industry insiders said: "Many Internet companies, in the name of IDC business (Internet Data Center), apply for low-cost backbone network bandwidth from operators to access their own computer rooms, but only some of the bandwidth is for their own use, while the other part is sold in batches to some third-party broadband enterprises, including China Mobile."

The industry estimates that the difference is nearly 40 times. Such a huge loophole, whether it is Telecom six years ago or Unicom today, is simply intolerable. Therefore, Wang Xiaochu, who was then the chairman of China Telecom and now takes over China Unicom, used the same tactic to clean up the illegal network access and hit the competitors twice.

Therefore, whether it is Pulse, Station A or Lanxun, it is just a pool fish that is affected by Unicom's "arson". It goes without saying who the real goal of Unicom, including Telecom 6 years ago, is.

Not just IDC

Unicom, with wolves in front and tigers and leopards in the back, had to take the initiative to attack and scrape the bones to heal the wounds. The reason why we focus on IDC business is that today, when the traditional voice business has been in a downward trend, IDC wins the world.

"For Unicom, even other operators, the traditional voice business has long been not the core of the interest contest. The business that really brings high income and high growth to the group is the Internet business such as IDC and cloud computing. After all, there are too few people making calls and sending SMS every day, and most people still send WeChat, even voice and video chat." An insider of Unicom who did not want to be named explained.

Therefore, it is reasonable that Wang Xiaochu has repeatedly targeted the rectification of IDC business. But in fact, the pressure of Unicom is not only here, but also in the face of the decline in performance, other traditional business departments have a hard time.

People from Unicom told the New Financial Observer: "In the first half of this year, Unicom began to put pressure on various departments to check management loopholes. For example, in the past, if group users did not renew their overdue payment, Unicom would not immediately shut down the network or call for payment as it did for public users, which caused many group users to be in arrears for a long time. Even some companies were empty, but did not go through the formalities for shutting down the network, which resulted in waste of resources and difficulty in rapid flow of funds. "

In addition, because of the pressure from the top, the sales pressure on the grass-roots staff is getting heavier and heavier, "Because the market for traditional business is almost saturated now, whether it is fixed network business or mobile business, it is difficult to sell one more card and install one more broadband service. Sales staff can only force users to open new cards through various marketing means, such as" maintaining "a secondary card if they want to discount mobile phone charges, and opening 2-3 mobile phone cards if they want to get preferential broadband service. Therefore, some users told us that Unicom is now forcing users to open new cards by "using its extreme", which is indeed the case. " Said the above Unicom person.

Stop falling and stabilize

If it were not forced, China Unicom would not carry out such merciless "hanging". In recent years, the "hardship" of Unicom is obvious to all in the industry.

Three years ago, due to the time difference between the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issuing 4G licenses to the three major operators, China Mobile took the lead in the beginning of the 4G battle. Wang Xiaochu also sighed at the recent mid-term performance conference: "Unicom has lost the opportunity to transform from 3G to 4G in the past two years."

Now, China Mobile, which already has a fixed network broadband license, is gradually encroaching on the market share of China Unicom and China Telecom, which have dominated the market for many years. Wang Xiaochu acknowledged that China Unicom is currently facing fierce competition from China Mobile, but it will not take the initiative to reduce prices, and will make adjustments depending on whether China Mobile reduces prices.

"As we all know, the advantage of Unicom lies in its fixed network business, while China Mobile can only power its mobile business due to policy restrictions, which accounts for a large proportion of the market. But since China Mobile has also obtained a fixed network license, our life has become increasingly difficult." The above Unicom person said helplessly.

On August 17, China Unicom released its performance report for the first half of 2016. The figures in the report were not good, and the year-on-year growth of various indicators was mostly negative, especially the net profit fell nearly 80% year on year. The pressure on China Unicom was self-evident.

However, Wang Xiaochu read out hope from this not too good looking report. Although the performance declined year-on-year, it has improved greatly month on month. In the second half of last year, China Unicom eliminated the gains from the sale of tower assets, and the actual loss was 3.36 billion yuan. Wang Xiaochu encouraged: "The most difficult period of China Unicom is about to pass. It is expected that the revenue will develop in a 'happy' direction at the end of this year, and will maintain a good momentum next year."