Tencent is not the rival of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. Will 5G messaging rebuild the Internet ecosystem?

Many times, once you stand on the high ground of the market, you no longer need to choose your opponents.

Because anyone can become the next "warrior" to challenge you, and WeChat is in a similar situation. Especially at present, as the communication technology is facing the adjustment of the times from 4G to 5G, any industry changes related to it will cause more heated discussions and onlookers than expected.

The concept of "5G" became even more popular in early April, following the heated discussion about "new infrastructure" in March.

The reason is simple. Recently, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, the three major operators, jointly launched the first "trump card" in the 5G era and released the "5G Message White Paper", planning to comprehensively reform the SMS function and launch the 5G message service.

Since then, the field of instant messaging seems to be on the verge of a huge change. WeChat, which has long dominated the Internet social and communication application market, is the first to be affected, and the direction of the industry is intriguing.

1. The "Big Three" jointly seek change, what is the difference between 5G messages?

Compared with the previous launch of Fetion, YiXin, ChaoXin and other applications, this time it is more like an overall leap forward for the communications industry.

In this regard, Dong Xin, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that 5G messaging is the common choice of global operators. Based on the unified GSMA RCS standard, it will bring customers new experiences such as multimedia messaging, business messaging, intelligent messaging, interactive services, security and anti-counterfeiting.

It is not difficult to understand that based on the upgrade of traditional SMS services, 5G messaging will become an inevitable trend in communication services regardless of whether it can successfully replace WeChat.

To this end, this online press conference invited many well-known mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, and Samsung to attend, and the trend of joint reform is worthy of attention.

Obviously, if we want to reform the traditional SMS business and fully upgrade it to 5G messaging, the most critical step is to open up the communication ecosystem of the entire mobile terminal, and mobile phone manufacturers are an important part that cannot be ignored.

Through the introduction of the "5G Message White Paper", we can also see that the expectations carried by 5G messages for this upgrade of traditional information services far exceed the previous launch vision of applications such as Fetion and YiXin.

In this regard, "Smart Relative Theory" believes that 5G messages will have two anchor points.

First, instant messaging, which is currently the most hotly discussed by the media and may have the most obvious impact on WeChat.

It is understood that 5G messages will support the sending of text, pictures, voice, video, location, emoticons and other content. It will also support point-to-point messages, group messages, group chat messages, and introduce AI chat robots, basically covering the mainstream functions of current instant messaging and social applications.

Second, the business ecosystem. Another source of hot topics on the Internet is that even if 5G messaging cannot defeat WeChat in the short term, it will impact some commercial apps.

Under the introduction of the three major operators, corporate users can establish business contacts with consumer groups through 5G messages, so individual consumers can directly use 5G messages to complete travel, catering, tourism, car rental and other business services, providing great convenience for individual users.

Obviously, if a business ecosystem centered around "5G messages" can be created, not to mention WeChat, it will undoubtedly be a reform that will impact the core business of Internet service companies such as Ctrip, Didi, and Meituan in the market today.

So, as the current hot discussion suggests, if 5G messaging can be operated well, it will not only "beat" WeChat, but will also change the current Internet market landscape and redirect part of the commercial traffic.

Of course, everything depends on operations, and there are no major problems with the display of functions and vision.

At present, 11 mobile phone manufacturers participating in the conference, including Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, vivo, and OPPO, have stated that subsequent models will strongly support the implementation of this function.

Huawei has entered the pilot area to start joint debugging in March, plans to make the first call on April 10, and announced support for 5G messaging commercial use in June. ZTE has also recently helped China Mobile successfully make the first call of 5G messaging based on the GSMA UP2.4 standard in Hangzhou, and will soon be able to realize the official commercial use of 5G messaging.

2. How much can we expect from 5G messaging?

Of course, despite the grand launch of 5G messages, the three major operators have also experienced many failures in the Internet era. Many readers of "Smart Relative Theory" have expressed their dismay at this.

However, from a market perspective, this time "Smart Relative Theory" has high expectations for the 5G news of the three major operators.

Because from Fetion to 5G messaging, we can see that there has been a very subtle shift in the operators' thinking - that is, from product thinking to platform thinking.

Re-examining the functions of Fetion, it is not difficult to discover that at that time China Mobile was developing a communication application more with a product mindset.

Therefore, after entering the market, Fetion gradually exposed many shortcomings, such as its exclusiveness to competition, being free only for mobile users, lack of scalability in functions, and its continued adherence to SMS and communication services even after WeChat embarked on the social path, gradually falling behind.

Although 5G messaging does not seem to surpass Fetion in terms of communication at present, we can still perceive that what is launched now is not just a communication tool, but also a platform that will carry the 5G business ecosystem in the future.

In this regard, "Smart Relative Theory" believes that it can be judged from three obvious signals.

• First, in terms of cooperation ecology, the three major operators no longer fight alone, but promote the industry to make strides in a joint way;
• Second, in terms of product form, 5G messages will no longer enter the market in the form of a client like Fetion, but will transform and upgrade the traditional SMS functions, abandoning the tedious steps of attracting and migrating users.
• In this regard, we can also believe that the three major operators may not intend to repeat the same mistakes and launch a new market product to compete with today's Internet giants. Instead, they will directly innovate on the original terminal ecology and firmly grasp their own terminal advantages.
• Third, in terms of product functions, 5G messages are not only limited to communication tools, but also a platform covering Internet business services, helping B-end enterprises and C-end customers to complete most business functions such as online shopping, local services, customer service marketing, etc., and will continue to expand and build a 5G business ecosystem in the future.

In summary, the launch of 5G messages is an Internet ecological platform launched by the three major operators taking the opportunity of 5G upgrade and upgrading the SMS business as the basis.

It is conceivable that if the opponent of 5G messaging is WeChat, then it seems to underestimate the ambition of the joint transformation of the three major operators.

At the same time, for individual users, what kind of experience will it be if such a concept is successful?

"Smart Relative Theory" believes that based on the above understanding, the comprehensive application of 5G messages will further shorten the path for users to complete consumer services, optimize the consumer experience, and present a "flat" experience.

Nowadays, there are more and more apps in our mobile phones, which occupy most of the space, but cannot be uninstalled. Despite the emergence of mini-programs, new problems have arisen, that is, the consumption path has increased.

A simple example.

• Suppose our mobile phone has a taxi-hailing app, it only takes three steps to hail a taxi, namely, open the phone - log in to the app - complete the taxi service.
• Assuming that our mobile phone does not have a taxi-hailing app, the route to hailing a taxi will become longer, that is, open the phone - log in to WeChat/Alipay - search for the taxi-hailing app - complete the taxi service.
• Assuming the full application of 5G messages, the path will be shortened, that is, open the mobile phone - 5G message - complete the taxi, and return to the original three steps.

Although nothing seems to have changed, if we can reduce the download of one software and one app for one service, we can foresee how "refreshing" the situation will be.

So, from the perspective of individual users, if 5G messaging can be realized, it will undoubtedly be the first passing answer sheet presented to Internet users in the 5G era.

Conclusion

Currently, there is still relatively little information and data released about 5G messaging. In the future, we will have to wait for the decisions and operations of the three major operators to understand the functions, operations, ecology and other aspects of this business.

At least, for now, the vision is good, the path is worthy of recognition, and the future of 5G is worth looking forward to.

Of course, for "Smart Relative Theory", as a witness of this era, the launch of 5G messages is a real tide of the times. Technology-driven changes are coming, and nothing can be more exciting and exciting than this.