Virtual operators tangled between money and power

Recently, the biggest hot spot in the communications industry is the virtual operator's intensive release of products. After the products launched by Snail Mobile, Bus Online, Phone World, and Tiga, the two Internet predators Ali and Jingdong also announced their product plans. All sorts of seductive vocabulary let the mobile phone user become God at once, what is the real situation behind such lively scene?

Virtual operators are the main "money" and "rights"

Looking at the selling points of the virtual operators, there are two words: "money" and "rights."

Snails and mobile phones represent the “money”. They mainly use “low-cost” to attract users. For example, the virtual operating brand of snails is “free”, and the 170th segment of the snail is “free card”, which is mainly for free voice calls. The phone world has introduced features such as “recharging 50% of the call charge” and has also made a fuss about the price.

Jingdong Heleman is a representative of “rights” and their selling point is “personalized service”. For example, the music language promotes the “Miao” brand, which focuses on mobile health services; JD’s promotion concept is “privilege.” Jingdong Communication’s users can enjoy four privileges: free communication privileges, shopping privileges, connected living privileges, and financial service privileges. . In particular, it is worth mentioning that the first free communication privilege that it introduced was to combine communication products with JD.com's shopping. JD.com’s silver-plated users can spend 1 minute of talk time and 1 trillion for themselves by spending 2 yuan in Jingdong. flow.

People want to have money and power. The virtual operator's marketing can capture the essential needs of people. “Money” corresponds to “price”, “right” corresponds to “service,” and competition in other industries does not About the two, either price wars or service wars.

The price war is similar to that of the Red Sea, but the space is small. However, virtual operators are both wholesale and retail models from the basic operators, and this wholesale price is not attractive, which makes virtual operators have little room for price war. For example, China Unicom charges 6-6.5% of its standard tariff for virtual operators, and China Unicom itself also promotes “send 100 to send 200” activities in many places, which makes the gap between virtual operators and basic operators have little difference. However, the tariffs between virtual operators are almost the same.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Circular on Tariff Regulating Prices of Telecommunication Services," clarifying that all telecom service charges are subject to market adjustment prices. This is tantamount to loosening the decline of the basic operator's tariff, and the basic operator is expected to adjust the tariff package in time according to market changes, while eliminating many policy approval procedures. This move also made virtual operators' price wars fail.

Looking at the virtual operator's tariff strategy, it seems tempting but it really analyzes it, but it is not the case. For example, the snail's "free card" is called a free voice call, but it can only be effective for half a year. After six months, it still needs to pay, and its package tariff is not much better than China Telecom and other basic operators.

Service warfare needs to be based on its own cross-border integration and service warfare, and there can be more room for innovation. Because these companies can combine their own characteristics, the introduction of differentiated features. In fact, the future competition of virtual operators is largely in service, not in price. In this sense, the PK among virtual operators is more the PK of their parent companies. Such competitions as Diga, JD Communications and Ali Communications are largely PKs between Dixton, JD and Alibaba.

Only by organically integrating the virtual operator business with the parent company's own business and exploring innovations, can it be expected to win in the virtual operator's Red Sea. Otherwise, simply repeating the old path that the basic operator has ever traveled may not have good results.

The negative example is "nickname marketing", such as Ali Communication allows users to select in advance their favorite or commemorative, collection of meaningful numbers. A Taobao account can apply for a private custom number (input number can be entered), a local number with 8 or 6, and a pair of couples. This approach is entirely a trick used by the basic operators in the year, and 1709 is not the same as 1390 in that year, and its appeal to users is limited.

Positive examples are “personalized services”, such as the mobile health service launched by Music Language, and the preferential shopping privilege offered by Jingdong Communication. Jingdong 170 users can purchase privileged goods in Jingdong at a discounted price, and enjoy free games at the same time. Shipping treatment. It is said that Jingdong Telecom's users also have financial privilege, that is, they enjoy Jingdong’s white bars, payment, credit, and financial plans. It can be said that Jingdong Communication’s “privilege” combines the virtual operator business with Jingdong’s business in e-commerce and finance, and innovates. Of course, according to the news announced by JD.com, these privileges are still only verbally. It will take time before implementation, but the direction is correct.

However, the requirements for the service warfare are relatively high. The parent company needs a large amount of resources and a strong platform to leverage. It is also necessary to work hard on the integration of the parent company business and the virtual operator business, and play innovation in cross-border. Explore more innovative services.

All in all, the virtual operators under the look of the Big Three are still in the embryonic stages. Whether it is to follow the traditional way of selling fees or to open up another way to serve the service card, the first task is to rapidly develop the market with “limited” telecommunications resources. Only simple price competition is difficult to highlight the encirclement, and service battles to fight the technical content requirements are relatively high, in the "unity" to expand the virtual operating market cake, the real will remain those who rely on their own advantages and deep integration of the players .