Nielsen: 5G enters a period of accelerated development, new scenarios give rise to new consumer demands

Recently, Nielsen, a global monitoring and data analysis company, and Suning.com jointly released the "5G Retail Industry Application White Paper". The white paper pointed out that in the face of the upcoming 5G era, Chinese consumers have shown a very positive attitude and vision. They believe that the communications industry, media and entertainment industry, distance education, telemedicine, smart home, transportation industry and retail industry will be the first industries to benefit from 5G technology.

Nielsen believes that 5G is about rapidly processing and transmitting the massive amounts of data generated in different application scenarios. As 5G continues to move forward on the road to application, it is crucial to understand the latest innovations and application scenarios. So, what scenarios will we see on the road to 5G development?

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In the short term, as user traffic costs gradually decrease, 5G mobile phone applications will become the most important form of application for consumers. Nielsen's consumer research data shows that nearly half of the respondents have felt the direct impact of 5G technology on the communications industry. 63% of the respondents expressed a strong desire to upgrade their mobile phones to 5G, and the willingness to upgrade was strongest among middle-aged and young high-income people. From a regional perspective, consumers in second- and third-tier cities are no less interested in 5G than those in first-tier cities. With the accelerated construction of 5G base stations and the continuous expansion of coverage, the market development of 5G mobile phones in second- and third-tier cities is also very impressive.

At the same time, the survey results show that consumers who are more willing to upgrade to 5G mobile phones are more concerned about the practicality of 5G mobile phones, that is, the high speed, stability, security and reliability of 5G networks can bring a different experience from 4G. However, people of different age groups have different concerns about 5G. Among them, young consumers under the age of 25 are concerned about the entertainment of 5G mobile phones, such as smoother gaming/video watching experience, while users over the age of 30 are more concerned about the speed and security of the overall experience of calls and Internet access.

At the same time, 5G will be widely used in the fields of audio-visual, gaming, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), which are also the most likely to become the main way of communicating and accepting with consumers. Taking the field of VR/AR as an example, data shows that more than 60% of the surveyed subjects said they have some understanding of AR/VR technology. From the perspective of age, people born in the 1990s and 2000s have the highest awareness of AR/VR. From the perspective of gender, both men and women are willing to try the application of AR/VR technology in virtual shopping. Among them, men prefer the application of AR/VR technology in games and virtual tourism, while women prefer the application of AR/VR technology in audio-visual entertainment, exhibitions and music performances.

In addition, smart home products are the most popular smart devices besides smartphones. According to Nielsen consumer research data, smart home products are now relatively popular, with more than 80% of households owning at least one smart home product. Among all types of smart home scenarios, smart living rooms have the highest penetration rate, among which smart speakers and smart TVs have become part of the smart living rooms of more than half of consumers, and more than half of the respondents own smart bracelets and smart watches. In addition, in order to create a more intelligent home environment, consumers also have further purchase plans for smart security and smart kitchen and bathroom products, and more than 50% of consumers expect to own smart refrigerators and stoves.

Undoubtedly, the application scenarios of 5G in the retail industry have attracted much attention. In Nielsen's survey, we found that consumers generally have a high acceptance of the innovative experience and innovative services provided by offline smart stores. They are willing to try to experience the convenience and fun that new technologies bring to shopping, and have expressed varying degrees of expectations for services such as smart shopping carts, product scanning and traceability, cloud shelves, and unmanned stores. However, due to the small number of pilot scenarios for 5G technology in the retail industry and the fact that many scenarios are still in the evaluation stage, consumers have limited perception of the changes that 5G technology will bring to the retail industry, and demand needs to be further stimulated.

One of the important revelations of the multi-scenario application brought by 5G technology is that we need to actively deploy 5G commercial applications. However, this does not mean that people have no concerns about the emergence of 5G. According to Nielsen's survey results, consumers are concerned about the security issues that may arise after 5G is put into use. Therefore, it is urgent to improve relevant security policies and procedures. Justin Sargent, President of Nielsen China, believes that "even though 5G is still facing certain problems, most companies are still optimistic. We also believe that more and more companies will participate in 5G pilots, and the outbreak of 5G application scenarios will follow. Nielsen further sorted out and summarized the application direction and landing scenarios of 5G in models, scenarios, products, experience, and services, and found that the arrival of 5G will have a significant impact on personalized demand insights, store digitization, virtual stores, unmanned logistics and other scenarios. In the final analysis, 5G has become a market factor that cannot be ignored. With the gradual maturity of 5G technology and the reduction of construction and application costs, more and more scenarios will be explored."

It is not difficult to find that 5G has become a new driving force for improving the economic value of enterprises. But the question is, which development path is the right one?

Based on Nielsen's years of experience in the retail industry, in the 5G era, which development path to choose? First of all, we should understand what opportunities 5G will bring. Wang Junjie, director of Suning Retail Technology Research Institute, believes that "5G will completely change people's traditional thinking about retail, reconstruct the relationship between 'commodities', 'consumers' and 'scenarios', and bring 'five new' development opportunities for smart retail, namely 'new models', 'new scenarios', 'new services', 'new products' and 'new experiences'". In terms of model, 5G IoT covers the world and can more widely connect dispersed or cross-regional products, consumers and suppliers. This will have a significant impact on the full-link digitization of the entire product life cycle, as well as data transmission, interaction, and the circulation mode of existing goods. The C2M model of decentralization and on-demand personalized production will also rise further. In terms of scenarios, in the 5G era, with the help of AR and VR, the space will be infinitely extended, creating a new shopping scene that combines the real and the virtual. In terms of products, 5G will also bring a large number of new, interconnected sensors and devices. These interconnected devices make it possible to collect and calculate massive data. In terms of experience, massive amounts of data flow between terminals and the cloud at high speed, accelerating the response speed and experience of AI services, AR/VR services, and bringing consumers more unimaginable experiences. In terms of services, 5G will speed up the implementation of new services such as unmanned delivery and remote operations.

5G networks can provide high-definition experience and accelerate response speed. Among them, network performance has the most significant effect on the acceleration of AI technology: after the arrival of 5G networks, it is expected that the response time of AI applications will be shortened through high-speed data transmission between terminals and the cloud. Artificial intelligence technology can bring convenient and efficient experience to consumers in the retail industry. In the field of unmanned retail, represented by Suning's smart unmanned store "SUNING GO", it adopts visual recognition + gravity sensing + automatic payment. Customers do not need to queue up for settlement, "take it and go, pay automatically".

The combination of AI and 5G will make face-scanning payment, automatic member login, automatic access control in unmanned stores, and robot vending machines smoother for users, making it more convenient for users to select products and settle accounts, bringing customers a new smart retail experience. For operators, by analyzing consumers in multiple dimensions, identifying new and old members, sensing user trajectories and identifying user behaviors, discovering users' understanding of products, forming user portraits, analyzing user needs and understanding shopping intentions, it will provide consumers with a more professional consumption environment.