Virtual operator Xiaomi may not make any big moves within a year

After get off work on November 20, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the fourth batch of mobile communications resale business pilot approval documents to 8 private enterprises. It is worth noting that Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. is included in these 8 units. In fact, as early as July this year, China Telecom announced the second batch of 10 mobile resale partners, and Xiaomi was on the list at that time.

For Xiaomi, obtaining mobile resale qualification is a great help

Before Double Eleven, Lei Jun claimed to release a mysterious big move and talked about 4G packages on Weibo many times. I wondered whether Xiaomi would launch a member-only package. If so, it would undoubtedly be a weapon with great lethality. The 4G network has been covering better and better, 4G terminals are rapidly popularizing, and the average price has been falling. For users, the biggest pain point is the high price package. If Xiaomi launches a more affordable package, coupled with a decent product, it will definitely win the hearts of more users.

After obtaining the mobile resale qualification, Xiaomi has this capability. Combined with Xiaomi's ecological gameplay, it is simply a tiger with wings.

The core of Xiaomi's model is the triathlon of "hardware + software + Internet services". Hardware includes smartphones, smart TVs, tablets, Xiaomi routers, etc., among which smartphones are the main ones. In the past four years, Xiaomi's mobile phone sales have shown a leapfrog growth. In the first half of this year, sales increased by 271% year-on-year. It is expected to reach 60 million units by the end of the year, and the target for next year is 100 million units.

Smartphones are the first entry point for users to access the mobile Internet, and Xiaomi's hardware layout has already formed a certain scale. Starting with MIUI6, many hardware products have been well integrated. In August, MIUI users had reached 70 million, and it is expected to reach 100 million by the end of the year. In terms of Internet services, huge investments have been made in cloud services, local life services, and content such as film and television, and reading. We can see that an ecological empire is gradually being established.

The arrival of the mobile resale license will make up for the short board of direct contact with users and help Xiaomi establish a deeper service system. Xiaomi's core model may become the "four-athlon", and whether it is hardware products, MIUI system, Internet services or numbers, they all have the ability to bind users, and the combination of the four can firmly bind users and allow them to deepen their value.

If Xiaomi's ambition is big enough, it can obtain the mobile resale qualification of the three operators, and then use Apple's SIM-free technology and software to enable users to choose their own network and break away from the basic operators. At that time, it will be a great benefit to users, and Xiaomi will also have a big enough voice. However, for a long time, the operators will not support it to do so.

Xiaomi, a virtual operator, may not make any big moves within a year

The blueprint of the ecological empire is beautiful, but Xiaomi will not make any major moves within the next year at least. The reasons are as follows:

1. Mobile resale is in the pilot stage until the end of next year. After the pilot, whether it can continue to obtain qualifications and continue to carry out mobile resale business is still unknown. In this context, no resale company will invest too much resources in a big way.

2. In the process of building the ecosystem, Xiaomi already has a unique account system, namely the Xiaomi account. After the 170 number arrives, it will face the problem of account system transfer, which will take some time.

3. During the pilot phase, the number resources issued by the three operators are limited, and the cumulative number of users of thirty or forty virtual operators is expected to reach only one million by the end of the year. Although Xiaomi has the ability to quickly expand the user base, it currently does not have the external conditions to do so.

4. The development of mobile business of operators has "three curves", which was proposed by Li Yue, President of China Mobile. The first is voice and short messages, which belong to the past and are currently declining rapidly; the third is applications and services, which belong to the future and have not yet become popular; the second is traffic, which is the main content of current operations. In order to achieve a certain profit, operators will prevent the rapid decline of traffic unit price. If mobile resale companies make substantial concessions, they may be warned or advised by basic operators.

5. China Telecom's resale package model restricts the rapid development of virtual operators. China Telecom provides three package models: one is the existing package resale model, which should be used in principle. The second is the customized package resale model, where you can make customized requests for specific packages to China Telecom. After the two parties reach an agreement through negotiation, China Telecom will provide the customized packages to the resale companies. Once formulated, they cannot be changed at will without the consent of China Telecom. The third is the resource pool resale model, where China Telecom provides basic telecommunications services such as voice, SMS, and traffic to resale companies at a certain wholesale price, and the resale companies design their own packages.

The third cooperation model may only be applied after the pilot is over. Mobile resale companies that cooperate with China Telecom basically use the first model, which is subject to certain restrictions in development. If Xiaomi has sufficient capabilities, it may be able to cooperate in the second model.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.