Tencent has already surpassed the three major operators in seconds, and it may be time to stop letting the fish grow

Since 2015, the regulatory authorities have vigorously implemented the policy of speed increase and fee reduction for seven consecutive years. my country's mobile data charges and broadband charges have been reduced by more than 90%, and the breadth and depth of network coverage have been greatly expanded. Speed ​​increase and fee reduction have promoted the informatization transformation of the whole society on the one hand, and greatly helped the rapid development of Internet companies on the other hand.

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1. Tencent has completed the flash sales of operators

On the afternoon of May 20, Tencent released its first quarter financial report. The financial report shows that Tencent's revenue in the first quarter was 135.303 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25%. The net profit in the first quarter was 47.8 billion yuan, compared with 28.896 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 65%, and an average daily profit of about 537 million yuan. Whether in terms of net profit growth or total volume, Tencent has achieved crazy development. Tencent, which has completed the overall layout of the Internet and built a moat, has a trend of developing towards monopoly in the future. In this case, unless administrative power intervenes, super-high-speed growth will be the norm for Tencent.

Before May 10, the three major operators all released their first quarter performance reports. According to the financial reports, the three major operators all achieved different growth in the first quarter, with a total operating income of 397.545 billion yuan and a total net profit of 34.384 billion yuan, with an average daily profit of about 382 million yuan. Although the year-on-year growth announced by the three major operators shows that both operating income and net profit have achieved good growth, compared with Tencent's super-high growth, the growth rate of the operators is extremely embarrassing. If Tencent further consolidates its business layout in the future, then Tencent, which has monopoly attributes, will inevitably become an incomparable big brother of the operators.

Although operators still have a clear advantage in terms of total operating income, as a heavy asset industry with nationwide distribution, operators need a certain amount of operating cash flow to offset their huge equipment construction and operating costs. In other words, a large part of the operating cash flow of operators comes from their network construction investment, and even means that costs are exchanged for income. Tencent, as an Internet company, is a typical light asset and one-stop service nationwide business model, which is one of the important reasons why the net profit margin of operators cannot be compared with that of Internet companies such as Tencent.

2. A rapid reduction in mobile data charges may affect 5G construction

The goal of speeding up and reducing fees is to "make communication faster and wider", and to make the people feel a sense of gain and happiness by continuously reducing communication costs. The financial report data released by the three major operators show that in contrast to the continuous growth of user DOU, user ARPU is continuing to decline. From the situation reflected in the data, users' sense of gain has really improved. Although there are various calls on the Internet for operators to continue to reduce fees, the growth of operators is already lower than the average growth rate of the basic industry. If low growth or even zero growth is maintained, it will inevitably lead to limited communication investment and limited pace of future information construction.

Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that in April 2021, the average unit price of traffic in my country was about 3.23 yuan/GB, which has dropped by 25% compared with April 2020. In fact, even if it is not compared with the same period last year, the average unit price of traffic in April 2021 has dropped by 2.1% compared with 3.3 yuan/GB in the first quarter of this year. In fact, whether this fee reduction is sustainable is not only worth thinking about, but also worth studying.

Corresponding to the continuous decline in traffic unit price, traffic volume has bottomed out and rebounded. From January to April this year, the traffic through mobile Internet reached 63.2 billion GB, a year-on-year increase of 36.7%, accounting for 95.8% of the total mobile Internet traffic. In April, the average mobile Internet access traffic (DOU) per household reached 12.92GB/household-month, a year-on-year increase of 37.8%, and 1GB/household-month higher than the end of last year. According to data released by the three major operators, my country's 5G package users have exceeded 400 million households, and the traffic volume will most likely show ultra-high growth in the future.

Behind the growth of 5G users are the huge 5G network construction and maintenance costs of operators. If the unit price of traffic continues to decline, and the revenue growth brought by the increase in traffic business volume cannot make up for the revenue loss caused by the decline in unit price, then this will inevitably affect the speed of 5G construction of operators. It should be said that after 7 years of speed increase and fee reduction, operators have long lost their halo of local tyrants. The return of China Mobile and China Telecom to the A-share market also shows to a certain extent that operators need to go to the stock market to raise funds for 5G construction and development.

3. Reforming the traffic sharing model has become a must

In the context of increasing speed and reducing fees, reducing communication costs is the focus of the regulatory authorities. Whether from a political perspective or from the perspective of accepting mandatory supervision, for operators, whether they are willing or not, and whether it complies with objective economic laws, raising the unit price of traffic has become an unfeasible operation in reality.

In the triangle relationship between users, operators and Internet companies, the premise of sustainable development is benign symbiosis. In fact, the regulators are also interested in promoting the common development and progress of users, operators and Internet companies. Speeding up and reducing fees not only meet the needs of users, but also the needs of Internet companies. Although it has caused great development pressure on operators in the short term, in the long run, the mutual support between operators and Internet companies is also an inevitable operation of supervision.

In the era of 5G development, operators need to invest huge amounts of money. Without sufficient operating flow and net profit support, 5G new infrastructure is unsustainable. In the absence of more support from users, the support of Internet companies is indispensable. BATJ are all involved in China Unicom's mixed-ownership reform. It should be said that this kind of support is a feasible way. In addition, adjusting the traffic fee sharing model should also become the direction of reform. Users use traffic for free, and the corresponding traffic fees are paid by Internet companies to operators. Although this method has been discussed for a long time and is also operational, it may not be easy to achieve without strong promotion from the regulatory authorities.

my country's Internet companies, especially the leading enterprises represented by Tencent and Alibaba, have already completed the operation of enclosing land and becoming stronger and bigger. The goal of the regulatory authorities to support the development of Internet companies has been achieved. At present, supporting my country's 5G to compete for global leadership has become a national consensus. Under this circumstance, it is inevitable that Internet companies support the development of operators.