Is “5G News” the last bonus opportunity to reach users?
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Tech Planet” (ID: tech618)
Author | Yang Yequan
Editor | Zhang Yuting
“5G messaging is the integration of services such as Apple’s iMessage and Wallet, or the ultimate upgraded version of SMS.” said Zhang Cheng, CEO of retail data company Maiwaidi.
Regarding the recently hot “5G news”, Zhang Cheng said in an interview with Tech Planet that Apple had hoped to do its own RCS (translated into converged communications, the predecessor of 5G news) in a closed system, that is, to send pictures IMessage and Wallet Wallet. In April, China Mobile, China Unicom and Telecom also jointly launched “5G News”, which can be described as “the same world, the same dream”.
Specifically, “5G message” is an upgrade of the short message service. It is a basic telecommunications service for operators. It realizes a leap in business experience based on IP technology, supports more media formats, and has more abundant forms of expression. The main reason behind the launch is that both operators, service providers and application providers want to be closer to users.
Why do operators and mobile phone hardware manufacturers want to use SMS to “grow up”? “Everyone wants to get closer to users, get data and provide services, and no one wants to be pipelined.” Zhang Cheng believes that “5G news” such a penetration-level product will bring huge business imagination space.
All along, Apple ’s commercialization has always had a “big dream of unification,” that is, through the Apple mobile phone at the hardware level, the iOS system at the system level, and integrated communication products based on the system, completely control the mobile life of Apple users. But neither iMessage nor Wallet are very successful.
China Mobile also launched RCS independently, breaking into the field of instant messaging, but WeChat is too strong, and even eroded the SMS business that the operator originally relied on. The 5G era is undoubtedly the best era of converged communications (communication and Internet convergence).
The three major operators have joined forces with 9 major mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi to make a comeback. The feature of obtaining services without downloading any apps has caused “5G News” to immediately spark a hot discussion.
So, as the first product and service to debut in the 5G era, will “5G News” have the opportunity to realize the unification dream that Apple has never achieved in the domestic market?
“Fisting WeChat, kicking Alipay?”
Recently, after the “5G News White Paper” jointly released by the three major operators, you can imagine the attractive prospects of “5G News”:
Based on the underlying communication and LBS services, it does not directly reach users through applications, push messages directly, and provide various life services. For example, after the high-speed rail booking information is pushed to the user, the car-hailing service on the road will be awakened. After arriving at the hotel, the nearby food has been selected according to your preferences. No need to switch between various applications, your mobile phone number is a unique ID, and you can get various services without feeling.
With “5G Message”, you don’t need to open WeChat to communicate with your friends. The newly upgraded SMS can send a variety of information such as pictures / videos. You don’t need to download Alipay to pay. More services can be used through the phone bill. The degree of convenience is seen by industry observers as “fighting WeChat and kicking Alipay.”
And what “5G News” can make people feel that it subverts all Internet applications, the core advantage is the three major operators, with a total of more than 1.6 billion mobile users, corresponding to more than 1.6 billion can be accurately positioned and directly reach Natural message entrance.
“Subversion of WeChat and Alipay is still far away, but compared to RCS, I am still cautiously optimistic about” 5G news “. Teddy Bear CEO Jiang Yanbei, who has been doing SMS upgrades for 5 years, told Tech Planet (WeChat) ID: tech618). In the early days, China Mobile hoped to use Fetion to recapture the information and communication market snatched by WeChat. After losing halfway, China Mobile hoped to use RCS to realize this dream.
“” 5G News “is actually a general version of RCS. In the past, RCS included too many privatization agreements, and now” 5G News “is more in line with international regulations. Jiang Yanbei believes that from the perspective of standard upgrades and the introduction of mobile phone manufacturers, operators do attach great importance to “5G news.” But C2C communication is still difficult to shake WeChat.
When it comes to whyWith Apple’s huge closed ecosystem failing to promote imessage, Jiang Yanbei believes that if a product cannot be cross-vendor and targeted to a full number of users, then it will encounter obstacles. For Apple, even in the United States and Japan, which have the highest market share, some users will still use mobile phones with other systems. If you use other methods to break the boundaries of the system, there may be security, privacy and other issues, all of which must be considered.
5G news across Apple and Android systems is also one of the problems, and it also has a gap with WeChat in product experience. Of course, 5G news can directly reach users, which is still very valuable.
“The channels for customers to reach users are very scarce. For example, APP, WeChat public account, and small programs have all passed the bonus period, and online reach users have almost reached saturation. Therefore, merchants have a high level of 5G news. Looking forward. “Yanbei believes that the biggest dividend of 5G news is B2C services, that is, merchants directly push various services to users through” 5G news “.
The iMessage and Wallet evolved from Apple ’s RCS are in C2C mode. But in the end, he failed to defeat WhatsApp in the United States and Line in Japan. On the contrary, Google has always followed the B2C model, and its Google Pay is the only one in foreign markets. This is also the fundamental reason why Yanbei is cautiously optimistic about “5G news”.
Whose lives can “5G News” revolution?
Compared with merchants who are looking forward to the launch of “5G News”, Zhang Cheng, who has been providing data services to retailers, is not so optimistic about 5G news.
“It is difficult to popularize on a large scale in 3-5 years. The fundamental reason is that operators want to win users from mobile phone system companies and application providers. But they still haven’t been able to differentiate themselves. Some services are really better than WeChat and Alipay. It ’s more convenient, but it ’s not enough to attract users. ”
At the product level, “5G News” is much less mature than Internet applications. This is an indisputable fact. Another constraint that operators are born with is that their landing logic can only take the “standard-product to application” route, and it is difficult to follow the Internet “user demand-rapid iteration to standard product service” route.
Zhang Cheng also believes that the biggest problem with 5G news is at the data level.
Encrypted data transmission is now used in Internet applications, and operators cannot get this part of the data. The LBS and number data owned by operators are too rough to provide personalized services. For example, the operator cannot know what you like to eat. After authorization, you can know that you have entered the mall, but you do not know which restaurant you are near.
In the view of Yanbei, in the past, Internet applications also wanted to achieve “5G messaging” scene service capabilities, but the ability of WeChat’s nearby restaurants to reach users is not as straightforward as text messaging.