China's commercial Wi-Fi market size exceeds 4.1 billion yuan, analysis of the three major development trends of the industry

Commercial Wi-Fi is a wireless Internet service provided by offline merchants for free. Users do not need to pay any fees and can access the network through certain authentication steps as a supporting service facility in modern commercial places. The functions of commercial Wi-Fi at this stage are mainly reflected in Internet traffic diversion, APP distribution, advertising services, precision marketing, indoor search and other aspects. It is widely used in public places such as restaurants, hotels, tourism, hospitals, subways, airports, schools, etc.

The construction of commercial Wi-Fi has very high commercial value and significance. The new advertising model of acquiring fans and spreading advertisements through commercial wireless WiFi connections has become a new highlight of commercial advertising. In addition, there are potential intangible values ​​brought by WeChat fans, big data, e-commerce, etc., and profits can be made through value-added services. There will be a large room for development in the future. According to the "2019-2024 China Commercial Wi-Fi Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospect Forecast Report" released by the Xinshijie Industry Research Center, it is estimated that in 2023, the scale of China's commercial Wi-Fi market will be 4.109 billion yuan, and the industry may show the following three development trends:

1. In the short term, the commercial Wi-Fi industry will still focus on expanding hotspot coverage

Commercial Wi-Fi operators need to invest a lot of money in the early stage of setting up hotspots. In addition, the hardware equipment installed by merchants also requires subsequent maintenance costs. Therefore, the initial hotspot laying costs plus the subsequent continuous maintenance costs are high, resulting in a relatively small base of hotspot coverage in China. In the future, with the proposal of national smart city construction, some cities will provide good support policies for commercial wifi operators, and the number of hotspots will continue to grow rapidly.

2. Big data and merchant services may become the core value points of commercial Wi-Fi

Wireless Wi-Fi is the "only way" for people to access the Internet. In the future, combined with big data analysis and application, data potential can be tapped, which has very high potential commercial value and a promising prospect. Consumers solve the traffic pain point through free commercial Wi-Fi, and merchants rely on the functions of commercial Wi-Fi systems to collect and analyze consumers' user information and behavior trajectories, and divide users' consumption habits: label and classify according to different age groups, different genders, different income levels, favorite brands, etc., to lay the foundation for precision marketing. At the same time, through big data analysis, consumers' preferences are collected and intelligently analyzed, consumer trajectory data is statistically analyzed, and consumer preferences are collected and analyzed, laying the foundation for precision marketing.

3. Commercial Wi-Fi operators will shift from expanding user scale to refined operations

In the early stages of the development of the commercial Wi-Fi industry, operators occupied the market by grabbing more users, and rapidly expanding the coverage of hotspots was the main goal of each company. When the number of hotspots reached a certain base, commercial wifi operators would change from the initial extensive expansion to refined operations, improve WiFi data utilization and merchant service capabilities, use limited advantageous resources, narrow the business scope, and increase the vertical extension of the business instead of widely covering the entire industry chain, so as to maintain the sustainable development of the industry.

According to an industry researcher from Xinshijie, most merchants currently install their own in-store WiFi, and a relatively small proportion of them install WiFi in cooperation with commercial WiFi or WiFi apps, so there is a lot of room for expansion. In the future, as the scale of commercial WiFi operators expands, agency channels expand, and offline merchants become more aware of and accept the commercial WiFi model, the number of commercial WiFi merchants is expected to continue to grow rapidly.