2018 Top Ten Internet Trends Prediction: 5G Becomes the Focus

Whether it is the turbulent forty years in Wu Xiaobo's eyes or the six brain holes in Luo Pang's mouth, they are all about cognition and trends. A year ago, the technology and Internet industries were in an era of excess traffic and attention. Even a pole could bloom in the big pool of users. However, the past 2017 was the most ups and downs year, and it was also a watershed. Standing at this new turning point, it will become more important to grasp the trend and upgrade cognition.

Faced with the uncertainty of industry development, increasingly blurred boundaries, and ubiquitous competition, what trends will the technology industry see in 2018?

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1. You never know who your opponent will be!

In the past, the rule of the Internet and technology industries was "keep out of each other's way", and each had its own moat and wall. For example, JD.com would not fight with Meituan, and the war with Toutiao would not burn Xiaomi. But in 2018, we need to think more, and the boundaries of competition will become more and more blurred. Before the end of the year, Meituan will launch taxi services in ten major cities, and Didi will also prepare to deliver food. The two companies that used to have nothing to do with each other may soon stand on the opposite side. Don't draw lines for yourself.

2. Sharing is a disease, and it’s time to cure it in 2018!

In 2017, the sharing economy was the hottest field. Driven by capital, sleeping pods, fitness, umbrellas, clothes, children, parking spaces, etc. were all affected. However, in 2018, many trend-following and sports-style business models represented by the concept of sharing economy will face the question of "bankruptcy". Even shared bicycle platforms such as Mobike and ofo, which have reached 30 million orders per day, will end their blind expansion and will eventually merge to find a way to make profits. Among them, the single shared car platform that emerged in 2017 will encounter the problem of "whether the model is established". Mobike, Didi, etc. may be hunters hidden in the dark, making it difficult for a single platform to resist.

3. New retail: “Li Gui” will be eliminated, Tencent will definitely be more ruthless!

New retail has become a new force in 2017. From unmanned shelves and vending machines to unmanned convenience stores and fresh food supermarkets, there are both good and bad players. The winner will be decided in every segment in 2018. In the big arena of innovative retail, Alibaba, which has already acquired traditional retail entities such as Intime, Xinhuadu, Lianhua Supermarket, and Gao Xin Retail, will continue its "buy, buy, buy" mode in 2018 and acquire shares in more retail entities. Tencent and JD.com, which did not have much layout in offline retail in the past, will accelerate their "make-up lessons" in 2018. Yonghui Supermarket is just a medicine lead. Next, the layout of "Tencent + JD.com" in offline retail will be more frequent.

4. Who says robots can’t replace humans? Many people will lose their jobs next year!

In 2017, artificial intelligence was all the rage, and almost every field and every company was labeled AI. In 2018, there will be more concrete results in the field of artificial intelligence, mainly in two aspects: first, artificial intelligence will no longer remain at the conceptual and technical level, but will sink into more application scenarios, and scenarios and data will become more important than the technology itself; second, in the past, it was considered a false proposition that artificial intelligence would be replaced by machines, but in 2018, this replacement trend will continue, and many tedious and repetitive positions that require manual support will gradually be replaced by machines.

5. Light assets will become history, and offline will crush online!

Inertial thinking believes that the biggest advantage of the Internet is the asset-light model, which can break the limitations of time and space. Only one platform is needed to connect supply and demand. There are many such platforms. For example, Didi has vehicle and driver resources on one side and users with travel needs on the other side. The platform and big data intelligently match the needs of both ends; another example is the Meituan Dianping platform, which has catering and other life service providers on one side and users on the other. The biggest advantage of the "asset-light" model is low cost and rapid expansion. As long as the capital is strong, it can quickly attract a large number of users. But in 2018, this rule will no longer work, because all businesses connected to offline in the future will increase investment in heavy assets. Didi has its own fleet, cooperates with leasing companies, and dabbles in smart cars; Xiaomi has opened offline stores, Internet finance uses stores to cover offline, and new retail goes offline.

6. After the router, the smart speaker is another pseudo-entrance!

In 2017, smart speakers suddenly opened up new imagination space. Overseas Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple Homepad have entered the market, and domestic Xiaomi and iFlytek have also launched related products. Why are so many companies competing for the smart speaker? Because everyone believes that smart speakers may be a major entrance to the future smart home. When voice interaction technology matures and is embedded in speaker products, users can watch TV, order food, book tickets, and play games just by "speaking" to the speaker. But will this become a reality in the future? I'm afraid it's another story of the pseudo-entrances of routers and mobile phones to the home.

7. Losing growth momentum, smartphones are having a hard time!

The smartphone market in 2017 was barely acceptable, but the growth momentum has slowed down significantly. The smartphone market still has growth momentum, fueled by concepts such as dual-camera photography and full-screen, especially the upgrade of smartphones from thousand-yuan phones to mid-to-high-end models, but 2018 may not be so lucky. As the domestic smartphone market as a whole migrates to mid-to-high-end products, and there is a lack of technology to stimulate users to buy new products, the growth momentum of the Chinese mobile phone market will weaken, and both production and sales will face huge challenges. Xiaomi, Huawei, and OV will further expand overseas markets to alleviate the pressure brought by the decline in domestic growth.

8. Traditional cars will lower their profile, and those who fight alone should be careful not to become victims!

Automotive consumption is a market far larger than the Internet. The transformation of the automotive industry chain in 2017 has just begun. From used cars, insurance, finance, maintenance to auto consumption, travel operations, and driverless driving, this will be the hottest track in 2018. In the short term, Guazi, Uxin, Renrenche, etc. are in the used car field, Didi and Shenzhou are in the travel field, Yiche and Autohome are exploring the automotive e-commerce model, Baidu and AutoNavi are starting from driverless driving, and NIO, WM Motor, Singularity Motors, etc. are involved in new energy and smart cars. On the surface, each has its own starting point and advantages, but next year may be different. The phenomenon of cross-border, investment, and even fighting will be more obvious.

9. Remind you to pay attention to 5G! 5G! 5G! It’s important to say it three times!

In 2017, it was still a luxury to talk about 5G, after all, operators had not started formal commercial testing. However, in 2018, the voice of 5G will be stronger. In the traditional sense, 3G has not escaped the scope of communication, but 5G is completely different, because 5G is not a simple functional extension based on 4G, and the application scenarios will be further expanded. 5G provides a peak rate at least 10 times that of 4G, millisecond-level transmission delay and hundreds of billions of connection capabilities. It has the characteristics of large network capacity, short delay, and low power consumption, which can provide support for the Internet of Things of wearable devices, Industry 4.0, smart cities, telemedicine and education. It can be said that 5G has a higher degree of correlation with major industries and greater energy.

10. The TOB business model is no longer on the bench and will usher in a period of explosive growth next year!

In the past few years, all innovative business models on the Internet that have achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion are almost all TO C models, while the TO B enterprise-level Internet market is often not favored by investors due to its long growth cycle, weak explosive power, and being constrained by a long industrial chain. In 2016, the enterprise-level market experienced a round of growth, and representative companies such as Funshine Sales, SalesEasy, and DingTalk appeared in the fields of sales CRM, human resources management HR, supply chain, and online customer service. They also received multiple rounds of financing, but then fell silent. In 2018, the TO B business model will usher in an explosive period, because the user and traffic growth dividends have ended, and refined operations and super users will become the focus of competition. At this time, TO B products and services will have their place.