2019: 5G takes center stage, changing lives and spreading across industries

Every upgrade of communication technology brings convenience and changes to people's lives. With the advent of the 5G era, people's lifestyles may undergo subversive changes. The scene of future life may be like this: in the morning, the curtains open automatically, the smart mattress rises automatically to help you get up, and the coffee machine has already brewed coffee when you finish washing. When you go out, the driverless car is waiting to pick you up...

Such a scenario will most likely be realized in the next short time, and all this may be attributed to the activation of 5G.

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2019 can be called the year when 5G "came to the fore". In June 2019, at the MWC2019 Shanghai (2019 Mobile World Congress Shanghai), Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and others released their latest 5G terminal products, making 5G the standard for the new generation of smartphones. In the same month, at CES Asia 2019 (2019 Consumer Electronics Show Asia), where new technologies in the automotive field became the highlight, SAIC Group, FAW Hongqi and others launched high-tech technologies such as 5G zero-screen smart cockpit and 5G remote control unmanned driving, heralding the advent of a new era of smart cars. In July 2019, GMIC2019 (Global Mobile Internet Conference) also chose "5G, AI and cutting-edge technology" as the most content-rich section of the conference to explore and tap the huge opportunities brought by 5G. Against this background, in November 2019, the "China 5G+ Smart Cultural Tourism Industry Alliance" was established.

In the 5G craze that started in 2019, which industries are most affected? In what aspects are the impacts mainly concentrated? Let's take a look.

5G+ mobile phone

Qualifying first place

The hottest 5G concept this year is, of course, 5G mobile phones and related industries.

Smartphone manufacturers have been quite active this year. Long before operators announced the official commercial use of 5G, some leading manufacturers had already started the battle for position in the second half of 2018 and successively displayed 5G mobile phones to the public. However, most of the early 5G mobile phones used external 5G basebands.

There is a reason why mobile phone manufacturers are preparing for a rainy day. From the 2G to 4G era, every communication revolution will bring about a round of elimination of mobile terminal manufacturers. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the global smartphone market has entered a period of weak replacement, and 5G is undoubtedly a major selling point that will trigger a new round of replacement.

5G will bring more than just a simple replacement of phones and a substantial increase in network speed to the mobile phone industry. Recently, OPPO Vice President Shen Yiren said on Weibo: "5G has a very big future, but I think the first industry to benefit in the short term must be the video industry." Shen Yiren believes that 5G's high network speed and low latency can make videos of higher quality, make video sharing more convenient and simpler, and the ways to play videos will become more and more diverse.

According to data released by the 2019 Shanghai Internet Audiovisual Industry Week, as of June 2019, the scale of online video users in China reached 759 million, an increase of 33.91 million from the end of 2018, and online video users accounted for 88.8% of the total Internet users.

Judging from the mobile phone conferences in 2019, Huawei, Apple, Samsung and other leading mobile phone manufacturers are all working hard in the video direction. In addition to 5G+video, in the future, 5G+4K/8K will be used to watch ultra-high-definition live events, 5G+VR/AR will be used to watch immersive performances, and 5G+cloud games will allow users to play anytime, anywhere... Behind these applications are industries worth hundreds of billions of yuan, and they have become the focus of mobile phone manufacturers.

The imminent 5G replacement wave and the promising 5G market have led mobile phone manufacturers to start a new round of product price wars earlier than other industries.

In the first half of this year, the prices of the first batch of 5G-friendly experience terminals launched by operators all exceeded five figures. At that time, an industry expert analyzed to reporters that the price of 5G mobile phones launched in the first quarter of 2020 would be in the 3,000 to 4,000 yuan range, and 2,000 yuan 5G mobile phones would be launched in the second quarter, and 1,000 yuan phones might not be launched until the end of 2020 or 2021.

But the fact is that the competition in the mobile phone industry is much more intense than the industry expected. After the issuance of 5G licenses in my country, the prices of 5G mobile phones have continued to hit new lows. In August, vivo's sub-brand IQOO took the lead in lowering the price of 5G mobile phones to 3,798 yuan, which also caused many manufacturers to adjust their marketing strategies.

With the official commercial use of 5G and the release of operator tariff packages, the price of 5G mobile phones has been falling. At the end of the year, in order to seize the time advantage, major mobile phone manufacturers have accelerated the pace of releasing 5G mobile phones. Huawei has successively released two 5G dual-mode mobile phones, Honor V30 and Huawei nova6, priced from 3,299 yuan, and the competition of 5G mobile phones has begun to enter the mid-range model field; then the Redmi K30 series 5G mobile phone was released, with a market price of 1,999 yuan, becoming the first dual-mode 5G mobile phone with a market price of less than 2,000 yuan.

Independent telecom analyst Fu Liang said in an interview with the International Financial News that 5G innovation is systematic. From chips and antennas to other small configuration functions and subsequent applications, these innovations will be released gradually. By the end of the year, Huawei, Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek and other SA/NSA-supporting 5G chips have been mass-produced. 5G mobile phones also have innovations in antennas, cooling and other aspects. It can be said that the basic functions of 5G mobile phones are maturing rapidly, and price is a secondary factor. As the technology matures to a certain level, manufacturers hope to rely on price to change the original market share structure.

The upcoming wave of replacement phones has given the global mobile phone industry, which has been experiencing consecutive negative growth in shipments, hope for recovery. Counterpoint, a market research and consulting company for the mobile technology industry, predicts that 5G mobile phone shipments in the Chinese market will exceed 150 million units in 2020. Looking at the world, 5G smartphone shipments will exceed 270 million units in 2020, and the penetration rate of 5G phones will increase from about 1% in 2019 to more than 15% in 2020.

In terms of manufacturer performance, the current 5G mobile phone market is mainly a competition among Android camps, and Apple has fallen behind in the pace of 5G follow-up. Fu Liang analyzed that the scale of 5G investment will expand in the first quarter of 2020, and Apple will inevitably be greatly affected because it does not support 5G mobile phones, especially in the Chinese market; as for China's top mobile phone manufacturers, each is accumulating industrial chain resources, and the possibility of elimination in the new round of qualifying is relatively small, while other mobile phone manufacturers outside the top will face severe tests.

Fu Liang said that the Chinese mobile phone market has entered a fierce competition, with leading manufacturers accounting for more than 90% of the market share. The next expansion at the mobile phone level will definitely be in other global markets. The focus will also lie in how domestic brands take advantage of the 5G opportunity to enter the 5G market in Europe and the United States and how much market share they will ultimately gain.

5G+Automotive

The advent of the “New Four Modernizations”

What left a deep impression on many viewers in the hit movie "Fast & Furious Hobbs & Shaw" in August this year was the high-tech motorcycle of the villain cyborg Brixton. This motorcycle was available on call and had functions such as AR navigation and holographic projection when the helmet was put on.

In fact, the automotive industry is already committed to realizing the implementation of such intelligent transportation in the near future. Perhaps soon, the emergence of fully autonomous driving will completely free our hands, and we can spend more time in the car at our own discretion, including entertainment, work, and rest. The Internet of Vehicles (V2X) can achieve the coordination of cars and everything, and cars will no longer be a separate entity.

However, if cars want to achieve this highly intelligent application scenario, they need the addition of high-speed, low-latency, and more secure 5G mobile communication technology. Xu Jian, a global partner of Kearney, told the International Financial News reporter that 5G is the basis for the realization of highly automated driving technology, as well as the basis for the realization of smart highways and vehicle-road collaboration in the Internet of Vehicles.

2019 is still a "cold winter" for China's auto industry. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, this year's auto sales will be about 25.83 million, down 8% year-on-year, and the decline has widened by 5.2% year-on-year. Even the previously popular new energy vehicles have cooled down as subsidies have been reduced, and have fallen for five consecutive times.

However, according to the reporter of International Financial News, in the face of difficulties, many industry insiders have shown unprecedented optimism. Zu Shijie, vice president and chief engineer of SAIC Motor, once lamented to the reporter of International Financial News that the changes in the automotive industry in the past 100 years have not been as fast as they are now, and he is honored to catch up with the era of great changes in the automotive industry.

Industry insiders generally agree that the century-long transformation of automobiles will be the "new four modernizations", namely electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing. Among them, intelligence and networking have been "much ado about nothing" in the past few years due to bottlenecks in basic technologies. However, as various parts of the country have begun to increase the promotion of 5G autonomous driving, especially after 5G began to be officially commercialized, the combination of 5G and automobiles has become closer.

Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, once said that smart transportation is an important application scenario of 5G. The "traffic light" will not only be a color, but will also enable 5G signals to interact with intelligent connected vehicles and build a network system that connects cars, roads and people.

At the Zhejiang International Smart Transportation Industry Expo and Future Transportation Conference held not long ago, relevant experts from China Mobile also stated that 5G is the basis for the realization of highly automated driving of automobiles. It not only makes automated driving safer, but also reduces the mass production cost of automated driving vehicles.

Perhaps it is precisely because of the recognition of the trend of combining 5G and automobiles that the cooperation between automobile companies and communication companies in 5G has become extremely frequent since this year. The strategic cooperation between automobile companies and the three major operators China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and upstream suppliers such as Huawei and ZTE has become more in-depth, mainly focusing on the exploration and application of 5G in the fields of automobile manufacturing, intelligent transportation, etc., and of course, strategic cooperation in the fields of intelligent interconnection, intelligent energy, intelligent manufacturing, cloud services, cloud computing and informatization.

In the 5G-connected automobile industry chain, it is not just car companies and communications companies that are involved. Currently, both the government and Internet technology companies are working together to promote the implementation of vehicle networking and autonomous driving in automobiles.

Xu Jian told reporters that the current representative leading technology companies such as BAT have already discovered the huge business opportunities contained in intelligent networked cars and have taken action. On June 28, Dongfeng Motor and Tencent reached a strategic cooperation to jointly create a new automobile + Internet ecosystem; in September this year, Tencent cooperated with Changan Automobile to launch the in-car version of WeChat; on August 28, Alibaba and SAIC Group jointly announced that they would deepen strategic cooperation and focus on building the next generation of intelligent networked car systems. Baidu's unmanned driving Apollo plan has been implemented for many years. On December 18, it also released two new open platforms: vehicle-road collaboration and intelligent vehicle connection.

"In the future, in the 5G-based Internet of Vehicles and autonomous driving, it is unlikely that any one company will dominate the market, whether it is car companies, communications companies or Internet technology companies. Instead, multiple parties will use their respective strengths to jointly lead the market, and the absence of any one party will not work." Xu Jian said that car companies have vehicle information that other companies do not have, Internet technology companies are at the forefront in terms of traffic scale and data mining capabilities, and communications companies have mastered advanced 5G technology.

5G+Tourism

Entering the digital tourism era

Just as people 20 years ago could not imagine that the Internet could now so conveniently connect food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment, people today cannot imagine what the tourism industry will look like in the 5G era or even in the more distant future.

For tourism operators, the most important question is, what impact will 5G have on the tourism industry? Will OTA continue to lead the technology frontier of the tourism industry? Interestingly, if we compare the media's discussion on the 4G era around 2013, apart from faster Internet speeds, there was no more discussion about changes in lifestyles. When 5G is about to arrive, there are more discussions about scenarios. The tourism industry with a long industrial chain is one of them.

How to facilitate travel and reduce safety hazards through digital technology is a focus of tourism in the 5G era. Whether it is autonomous driving or smart cities that monitor and adjust urban traffic in real time, they can better solve the congestion problem, holiday congestion may be improved, and road traffic safety can be better guaranteed.

The high bandwidth of 5G can support higher signal transmission efficiency, so immersive tourism scenarios may emerge. Tourists can use VR to preview the scenic environment before traveling to help make travel decisions. During the trip, they can interact with the destination and share landscape videos in a timely manner.

In terms of hotel accommodation, hotels may launch VR guided tour services for some room types. Guests can learn about hotel room types through VR tours before booking. 5G may make this trend popular in the industry.

"Tourism is the best application scenario for new technologies." According to Hong Qinghua, 5G will bring about earth-shaking changes in tourism: 5G ultra-high-definition live broadcast technology will bring an ultimate high-definition experience; "AR+AI" will make the scenery come alive, that is, in the future, if you travel with a 5G mobile phone, you can see the appearance of monsters at any time, and you can see the sunrise of Huangshan even on rainy days.

It is worth mentioning that scenic spot monitoring is also an important scenario under the concept of 5G application and Internet of Things. The scenic spot can dynamically monitor the flow of people inside and outside the area and reasonably adjust the tidal peak, which can not only ensure the safety of the scenic spot, but also control the number of people in the scenic spot and enhance the experience of tourists in the scenic spot.

Huang Huang, a doctor from the joint research team of the United Nations Development Program, China International Exchange Center, and Ctrip Group, believes that 5G technology can use a large number of IoT observations and real-time dynamic monitoring in scenic spots, and form a tourism safety information index through a real-time tourism safety risk assessment model. This will help tourists obtain comprehensive safety information and ensure safe travel.

It is reported that there are now monitors in the Jiuzhaigou Scenic Area to monitor wind speed, rainfall, and soil looseness in real time. The model will prompt the possibility of mudslides or other unexpected disasters. If a certain critical value is exceeded, it will be reported directly to tourists in real time. In Chongqing's Hongyadong, a system for monitoring the flow of people has been set up. Through electronic fences, the flow of people within 500 meters and 1 kilometer can be monitored, so as to carry out targeted diversion and guidance.

Although 5G is still some distance away from widespread application, leading players in the industry are already actively preparing for the changes that the 5G era may bring to the tourism industry.

"The more content users can see, the more they want to experience. This can be said to be a core idea for the tourism industry to cater to the 5G era." The relevant person in charge of Ctrip Technology said that 5G is not a concept, but a real change, and this change will be led by the industry's leading players.

The above-mentioned Ctrip official believes that not only infrastructure such as transportation and scenic spots are related to 5G in the context of the Internet of Things, but the OTA platform is even more strongly related to 5G, because OTA itself represents the forefront of tourism industry technology. Many new industry "ways of playing" in the 5G era may be first introduced by OTA.

"The era of digital cultural tourism has arrived." Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Research Institute and director of the Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, believes that driven by technology, the boundaries between industries are gradually disappearing, and the cultural tourism industry needs to adapt and innovate business models.