Today is world telecommunication day. More than half a month later, China will also celebrate the third anniversary of 5g license issuance. Over the past three years, China has made remarkable achievements in 5g network construction, 5g mobile phone shipments and 5g users. But what cannot be avoided is that there are still various challenges to further popularize 5g.
In terms of network coverage, the vast rural areas will be the next difficulty; In terms of 5g mobile phone shipments, they did not rise but fell in the first quarter of this year; In 5g applications, killer applications are still lacking.
Operators are also aware of the lack of three-tier killers. 5g video RBT, 5g message, 5g new call, and almost all operators' TOC services are ushering in a new round of upgrading. However, from the launch of services to large-scale commercial use, there is still a gap to be crossed.
At the time point of three years, the popularity of 5g in China is entering the deep water area.
5g investment slowed down and township coverage became the focus of the next round
Data show that as of the first quarter of this year, China has built and opened 1.559 million 5g base stations, and the 5g network has covered all prefecture level cities and county urban areas in China.
In this context, operators have begun to slow down the pace of 5g investment.
Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, said at the 2021 performance meeting that 2020-2022 is the peak of 5g investment and construction, and 2022 is also the last year of China Mobile's 5g investment peak. From 2023, if there are no other major events, the company's capital expenditure will gradually decline.
From the data disclosed in the financial report, it is true.
In 2020, China Mobile 5g capital expenditure was 102.5 billion yuan; Slightly increased to 114 billion yuan in 2021; In 2022, it is expected to decrease slightly to about 110 billion yuan. "From next year, 5g investment will not increase and will show a gradual downward trend." Yang Jie said.
However, it is worth noting that there is another important link for 5g network to achieve national coverage: rural areas. In terms of area and population, the scale of rural areas is much larger than that of cities.
This year, operators are also shifting the focus of 5g network construction to rural areas. Yang Jie previously said that he would ensure the continuous 5g coverage of villages and towns in China by the end of 2022, as well as the effective coverage of important parks, hot spots and developed rural areas; China Telecom and China Unicom are also covering 5g co construction and sharing to counties and developed towns.
From China Telecom and China Unicom, 5g co construction and sharing in rural areas can also greatly reduce the investment cost. The data disclosed by the two sides in January this year is that the accumulated investment in network construction has been saved by more than 210 billion yuan, and the annual network operation cost has been saved by 20 billion yuan.
From the perspective of China Mobile, its joint construction and sharing with China Radio and television on 700MHz 5g network will also play a great role in rural market coverage. The 700MHz band 5g network has the characteristics of wide coverage, strong penetration and strong uplink ability, which is suitable for wide area coverage.
It is reported that through joint construction and sharing with China Radio and television, China Mobile has built 200000 700MHz 5g base stations in 2021, and plans to build another 280000 700MHz 5g base stations this year. At that time, 700MHz 5g network will also achieve national coverage.
However, what makes the outside world anxious is that although China Radio and television has also obtained the 5g license and become the new fourth largest operator, it has not released the number for a long time. Whether China's Radio and television can break the current market pattern in the future is still unknown.
5g mobile phones are not popular anymore
Just yesterday, the ICT Institute just released the data of domestic mobile phone market in March.
According to the data, in March 2022, the overall shipment volume of the domestic mobile phone market was 21.46 million, a year-on-year decrease of 40.5%. Among them, the shipment of 5g mobile phones was 16.185 million, a year-on-year decrease of 41.1%, accounting for 75.4% of the mobile phone shipment in the same period.
It is worth noting that this is the third consecutive month that 5g mobile phone shipments and their proportion have decreased. In February and March this year, the proportion fell below 80%.
Under the dismal data, "4G mobile phones rebound" and "5g mobile phones are useless" came one after another.
Sina technology has previously written an article and analyzed that 4G mobile phone shipments did not rebound sharply year-on-year in the same period. The decline in the proportion of 5g mobile phone shipments is related to the impact of the epidemic on consumption capacity, Huawei's shift to 4G mobile phones, and the remaining demand for entry-level 4G products from other manufacturers.
The further popularization of 5g mobile phones is also closely related to the next network construction of operators and the price of 5g package.
On the one hand, as operators carry out large-scale 5g coverage in rural areas, there will still be some demand for medium and low-end 4G mobile phone users to change to 5g; On the other hand, the current 5g package price is still high for consumers in the rural market.
For the three major operators, it is not easy to rely on 5g to stop the decline and recover the ARPU value (average income per user). It is undoubtedly very difficult for them to significantly reduce the price of 5g package, which is also very unfavorable to recover the 5g investment cost in recent years.
This may be an opportunity for China Radio and television, the fourth largest operator using 700MHz to build a network, to overtake in the rural market.
Can 5g new call become a killer application
In addition to networks and terminals, applications are also an important part of promoting 5g popularity, but they are also the biggest pain point in the current 5g development.
Among users who have used 5g mobile phones and 5g packages, it is difficult to feel too different from 4G, which may be the use experience of most users.
Operators are also trying to solve this problem. 5g and 5g mobile operators will make great efforts to upgrade their 5g and 5g mobile communication products in the same era.
However, this process is not completely smooth.
At present, 5g video RBT has the largest number of users among the three products, and the users of 5g video RBT of the three operators have reached hundreds of millions. The founder of Yonghao technology gained the upper hand in March this year because of the bombardment of luojian technology. 5g video RBT, in terms of relevant user experience, there are still many pain points to be solved.
5g news is the most watched 5g service among the three major operators, and was once considered as a challenge to wechat. However, the business process is not particularly ideal due to the dispute over the import interests with mobile phone manufacturers and the interconnection between the three operators.
The 5g new call launched in April this year has become a new star 5g product.
First, China Mobile announced the launch of 5g new calls on April 12, and then China Unicom and China Telecom jointly announced the interconnection of 5g new calls on April 26. The three operators fought openly and secretly on 5g new calls.
From the consumer side, 5g new call realizes the experience of direct HD video call without downloading app and native address book. At the same time, it does not consume traffic and gives priority to deducting the call minutes in the package, which is more attractive than the charge of 5g message.
After the release of 5g new call, a person in the communication industry said frankly that this is the product that operators can really benchmark wechat.
5g new calls are not completely without challenges. In terms of users' habits, wechat voice call and video call have become functions used by the whole people. It is not easy to change the usage habits of hundreds of millions of users.
However, at least, in providing differentiated 5g applications, operators have been trying step by step. As for the success or not, wait for the market to verify.