Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In the recently completed hit TV series "Hurricane," there have been many unique things 20 years ago, such as "PHS" with great characteristics of the times. For most people of that era, cell phones and mobile phone service were still expensive luxury services, and PHS was a more affordable solution. Over the past few decades, domestic operators have been increasing their rates and reducing their fees, and now they have basically made the most basic mobile communication services affordable for everyone.

About 10 years ago, the domestic virtual operator business pilot started. At that time, it was widely believed that the emergence of a large number of virtual operators would make the competition in the mobile communication market more complete and break the monopoly of basic operators. At the same time, virtual operators with Internet background can bring more innovation and vitality in product marketing, package design and profit model.

However, today in 2023, looking back at the development of domestic virtual operators, we found that things did not seem as good as imagined at that time. The original virtual operator brand has basically disappeared. In the mobile communications market, virtual operators are not an option that most people will consider, but only traces of their existence can be found in a series of corners of the Internet.

Status of virtual business: or shut down or lie flat At the end of 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued pilot licenses for mobile communication resale business operation to 11 enterprises. The brand names of their virtual business are Tianyin Mobile, Lianlian Technology, Leyu Communication, Huaxiang Lianxin, Jingdong Communication, Beiwei Cellular Internet, Alibaba Communication, Xintong, Sharing Communication, Zhongmai Communication and Telephone World respectively. In 2014, more than 30 enterprises obtained pilot licenses, including Xiaomi, ZTE, Suning and other well-known companies, and the number of domestic virtual operators exceeded 40.

In the first two years of the pilot, the development momentum of virtual operators was very rapid. According to the data released by Communication World Network, as of 2016, the number of virtual business users in China exceeded 28 million, of which 24 million were based on Unicom, while only 3 million and 1 million were mobile and telecommunications. However, by the time the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued the mobile communication resale business license in 2018, we found that only 15 enterprises remained.

(Screenshot of the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) Today, in 2023, when we look for these virtual operators again, we find that few businesses are still operating normally, either shut down or lying flat.

For example, the official website of Jingdong Communication can still be accessed normally, but it has been unable to select the number card, and even the product details page cannot be opened; while the official flagship store of Ali Communication has only one number card package on sale; the official website of Tianyin Communication shows that it is still upgrading the system, and can only handle the number selection network business offline.

From the current situation of virtual operators, the business they operate is obviously not very optimistic, the sense of existence is weak, and the difficulty of handling is great, which indicates that this is a project that tends to fail.

There is no hope of profit. Virtual operators cannot play the role of catfish. Although the term "virtual operators" contains the keyword "operators," virtual operators and mobile Unicom Telecom are essentially different. Virtual operators do not have their own telecommunications equipment and communication resources. The services they sell need to be supported by the three major operators. Users are actually using mobile Unicom signals with virtual business cards. In the end, virtual business is to buy communication resources from the three major operators, then combine them into packages and resell them to users.

Theoretically, as a "second dealer," the virtual business card package will be more expensive than the base carrier's, because the virtual merchant wants to make a profit from it. However, in fact, in order to attract users and form competitive advantage, the early virtual merchants are burning money crazily, the monthly rent is low, the traffic voice price is low, the communication resources are not cleared at the end of the month, etc., which are often the core advantages of the virtual merchant mobile phone card.

In addition, many virtual business mobile phone cards will be linked with the brand's own business to increase user viscosity and expand product advantages. For example, Jingdong signal card can once be bundled with Jingdong account, users in Jingdong shopping generated rewards, can be exchanged into the number card voice, traffic or SMS resources, theoretically users can make free phone calls and Internet access. Snail Mobile connects the snail card with its own game service, and some game rewards can be exchanged for mobile phone traffic packages.

However, from the business logic point of view, the money-burning model is bound to be unsustainable for a long time, and profitability is a problem that every virtual operator needs to solve. When the tariffs of the three major operators are still relatively high, the virtual operators may still have more bargaining space and take the road of small profits but quick turnover, while when the basic operators themselves promote and compress their profit space, the virtual operators cannot become opponents.

Starting in 2016, Internet package number cards began to rise. Unlike virtual business cards, these Internet packages, although also in cooperation with Internet brands, are still dominated by the three major operators. For the most successful Tencent Wangka, it is essentially a Unicom mobile phone card, but the sales channel is mainly Tencent App. The appearance of Internet package makes traffic become cabbage price, and also makes the price advantage of virtual merchant mobile phone card disappear. For Internet companies, helping operators sell mobile phone cards is less costly and risky than operating their own virtual businesses.

In addition, the virtual operator number card was not strict with the real-name authentication in the early stage, which led to the use of this kind of mobile phone card by gray and black production. 170 almost became the exclusive number segment of fraud and disturbing telephone. As a result, the willingness of users to apply for virtual business cards has been greatly reduced.

Lying flat virtual business mobile phone card, suitable for lying flat users into the 5G era, you can obviously feel the rise of mobile communication tariffs. Operators have removed Internet packages on a large scale and spared no effort to promote higher-priced 5G packages, resulting in more 5G package users than actual 5G users. The low-monthly number card package, but also disappeared, want to find a suitable number protection package is very difficult.

At this time, the value of the virtual carrier card was highlighted. For example, Xiaomi Mobile sells 19 yuan "eat to full" package, traffic 1 yuan 1 day unlimited use (more than 20GB / 100GB will limit speed), this kind of number card in the three major operators there has been difficult to see. Snail Mobile can also buy a monthly number card of 0 yuan (low consumption of 2 yuan per month) on the official public account, which can be used as a registered account to receive the trumpet of Captcha, which is still very practical.

It is not difficult to see that if you are a heavy user, there is a huge demand for traffic and voice. Obviously, the number card package of the virtual merchant is not suitable for you. The mainstream package of the three major operators themselves is a better choice. But for users who want to lie flat, a lower-cost virtual business package is a better small phone card. Moreover, in terms of the actual experience of Lei himself and his friends around him, it is less easy for virtual business mobile phone numbers to receive disturbing calls, and perhaps they are reluctant to invest "marketing" resources in this increasingly small group.

In general, virtual business is an important attempt in the operator market, bringing changes to the market and more choices to users through the form of Internet vendors reselling basic operator communication resources. However, the virtual operator business has failed to explore a sustainable business path in China, becoming more and more niche and marginalized, and even playing a role in the role of "number protection package."

However, from another point of view, this also shows that the tariffs of the three major operators have been reduced to a very reasonable level, there is no room for virtual operators to operate, users get real benefits, virtual operators have fulfilled our expectations in disguise.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Lei Technology (ID: leitech), author: Lei Technology Internet Group

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