Can the three major operators jointly develop Fetion to compete with WeChat?

A recent tender notice from China Mobile has brought the long-dormant Fetion back into people's attention. Although it is still covered in dust, at least we can see that there is a beating heart beneath the dust.

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Even though the decline of Fetion has been discussed countless times, it still makes people sigh every time. This product, which once represented the innovative power of China Mobile, the courage of China Mobile's self-revolution, and the direct confrontation between state-owned operators and OTT companies, once held a huge advantage. However, due to various subjective and objective reasons, Fetion has been completely silent in the corner of history. Today, WeChat users have exceeded 900 million, while Fetion active users are less than one million. The defeat is already done. If it wants to revive today, the road ahead will certainly be full of difficulties, but at least we should know where we failed in the first place?

It is generally believed that the failure of *** was that China Mobile built the wall of Fetion too rigidly in the early stage of operation and refused to register users from China Telecom and China Unicom. This was tantamount to drawing a circle to confine oneself in the Internet trend that advocated openness. Although it was later opened up, the opportunity for *** had been missed.

The second failure was the lack of courage to reform itself. At that time, China Mobile's purpose of developing Fetion was largely to increase user stickiness and tie users together, so that users could continuously contribute to voice and SMS revenue. When they found that Fetion's development momentum was too strong and had a great impact on SMS revenue, Fetion began to brake. In fact, it was not only Fetion. In 2013, China Mobile launched a social product called Jego, which had similar functions to Skype. At the beginning, the response was quite good, but later it was found that it might have an impact on voice revenue, so it was taken offline three months later. All these reflect that China Mobile, as a state-owned enterprise, is too focused on immediate profits and lacks the courage to reform itself. The root cause is related to the assessment system and tenure cycle of business operators. It is not that they are short-sighted and lack strategic vision, but the pressure of assessment makes them avoid risks as much as possible. Avoiding risks also avoids opportunities.

The third failure is the mechanism of state-owned enterprise operators. Let's not talk about the discretionary power in decision-making, the tricks in operation, the telecom-level requirements for services, or the intensity of supervision. Let's just look at the incentive mechanism for talents. Today, Zhang Xiaolong, the father of WeChat, has a stock dividend and income of more than 500 million yuan a year, and his core employees' annual income exceeded 10 million yuan. This alone is a farce for China Mobile. Its top management's annual income is also in the millions. The distribution mechanism of state-owned enterprises is too focused on equality, and the other side of equality is the big pot meal. There is a lack of special incentive mechanisms for talents who make special contributions. You must know that innovation requires passion, and passion needs to be rewarded. Everyone knows that it is impossible to make great products by working from 9 to 5 and making 5,000 yuan a month, but they also know that even if they make great products, their monthly salary is still 5,000 yuan.

The fourth one is not actually a failure, but a realistic constraint. Fetion encountered a 3G network that was inherently technically flawed - TD-SCDMA. Afterwards, many people said that if China Mobile had obtained a WCDMA license that year, Fetion might have survived longer, and as long as it is alive, there is hope.

In fact, there is a lot more to talk about, such as the problem of Fetion's over-reliance on outsourcing in R&D and operations. Just think about it, if a third-party company outside can develop a great product and operate it well, why would they put on the coat of China Mobile? Outsourcing manufacturers only care about project funds and don't care whether the product is viable or can generate value.

In fact, it is not only Fetion that is losing. Even China Mobile is losing ground to Tencent. Tencent was so poor that it went to Guangdong Mobile to ask to sell itself. The price was probably several million, but Guangdong Mobile thought it was too expensive and did not buy it. Today, Tencent's market value is 3.7 trillion Hong Kong dollars, and China Mobile's market value is 1.6 trillion Hong Kong dollars. Tencent's market value is 2.3 times that of China Mobile. Of course, as a state-owned enterprise, China Mobile wants profits, not market value, but it is this management philosophy that may eventually make China Mobile lose its market value, profits, and future.

Back to the point, today China Mobile has invested heavily in trying to revive Fetion. Is there still a chance? I can only say that there is always a chance, even if it is very slim. How to achieve it? Since it is a slim chance, I think only by taking the enemy by surprise can we have a chance of winning: I think China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom should work together to create Fetion, which may be able to compete with WeChat.

It sounds a bit like dreaming, right? Yes, but we should always have dreams, otherwise what is the point of sleeping? Let's be foolish for a moment and talk about how to make this dream come true.

First of all, the three operators all have a social dream, because they all know that social networking is one of the most important business models of this era. China Telecom launched Yixin, and later launched Yixin in conjunction with NetEase. China Unicom launched Woyou, and China Mobile also launched Feichat, which was later integrated into Fetion. Now, these products have very few users, Woyou died, Feichat is gone, Yixin is operating poorly, and only its own employees are active in Fetion. Therefore, they have the desire to make a product that can stand out in social networking.

Suppose the three companies join forces to develop Fetion, how will they do it? (The following is pure wishful thinking)

First, leverage the remaining influence of the three operators in the industry chain to push mobile phone manufacturers to remove the original SMS function in mobile phone design and graft all the SMS functions onto Fetion. Then embed Fetion as a native application in the mobile phones before they leave the factory. Users do not need to register when using it and will automatically log in with their mobile phone numbers. This means that you cannot receive text messages if you do not use Fetion (this move is ruthless, isn't it?).

Second, we will expand Fetion's application scenarios. We will use bank information and industry verification codes as a starting point, leverage the advantages of the government and enterprise market, and re-cultivate users' social networks to help users naturally form circles. We must know that 80% of people in this society have a unit, or a school, or a company, or a factory. Through the user's mobile phone number, a natural circle can be formed. We can achieve full coverage from each circle and spread some viral marketing games or hot topic marketing activities in a timely manner.

Third, start with traffic charges and play the free card. This may be a trick that kills one thousand enemies and hurts eight hundred of your own, but it is definitely effective. Unlimited traffic packages have been launched, so why care about Fetion's traffic?! For example, the traffic charges for messages, pictures, voice, and videos between Fetion users are all free. This free card will definitely allow many users to use Fetion's social functions, and then give full play to the communication capabilities of operators to enhance Fetion's social hard power, such as higher-definition video calls and clearer voice. This is a huge challenge for WeChat.

Fourth, they took advantage of their control over the basic network and caused several unexpected failures in the computer room, which prevented WeChat users from sending and receiving messages, allowing Fetion to take advantage of the situation. Although this move was very damaging and also affected the dignity of the operator's telecom-level services, and was also a bit of unfair competition, but looking around, what kind of competition is fair now? This kind of play can only be regarded as a trick.

*** is persistence. Set a good strategy and stick to it. Don't set targets that focus too much on immediate benefits, such as reaching 100 million users in the first year, breaking even in the second year, making a profit in the third year, and having one-third of the revenue share in the fourth year. If Fetion wants to play well, it must follow the rules of the Internet. Many Internet companies that seem successful today have been losing money for more than ten years and slowly realizing their plans. I think this is what the leaders of state-owned enterprises call strategic patience.