The Realness of 3G Opportunity in China :: 对3G序幕正式拉开时机遇的一些思考

The China 3G certificate release on January 7th is taken by many people as a big economic event.  I have been thinking about the realness of this opportunity.  I currently feel the below:

This is a real opportunity, though short term and long term need be driven by different forces. Due to the 10 years marketing investments of the China carriers, cell phone fashion and cell phone culture are widely spread and enjoyed among Chinese people, so the China market consumers do have the potential to consume 3G. But the volume definitely will need a few years’ foster, just as shown in what has happened to many innovative cell phone data services over the past few years – investment to cultivate seed users in the teenager group, the young city inhabitant group and the high-end business group will take big efforts and should be led by the deep pocket china carriers.  Good thing is the carriers do begin to show huge investment commitment: they recently committed about 280 billion RMB over year 2009 and 2010 into network and equipments, and billions to subsidize the cell phone companies too.  With these fund, 3G is a real opportunity short term, actually driven by the daring spending of the carriers; long term it is still a question mark depends on whether there can be the tipping point from investment driven to user driven.

Some people around us have already become the beneficiaries of this:

• Some originally non-leader China domestic brands and a few South Korean brands have gained deals. Previous two years the China legal domestic brands are very painfully eroded by the copy cat brands. Now, because of the carrier-PO directed production and the lack of the low cost consolidated 3G chip availability for the copy cats, the 3G production of the China domestic brands will be sheltered from the copy cats for a while.  Some previous deep in trouble brands like XiaXin has gained new hope from 3G; also a few other previously non-leading domestic brands such as ZTE, YuLong also get the leader position through their TD-SCDMA new gains. At the same time, a few KOR companies such as Samsung and LG also have got some orders.  And a few international brands that have failed and exited the China market now can plan the re-enter to leverage this new possibility, such as Sharp.
• Consulting service providers: the 3G release enhanced the completions among the carriers.  Now the market changes from 1 big + 1 small (China Mobile + China Unicom) to 2 big + 1 small (China Mobile + China Telecom + China Unicom), so the true competition finally comes into being.  Due to the enhanced competition, each of the three carriers must put more emphasis onto better generate and serve the market needs.  Therefore consulting service providers focusing on user experiences, market researches, product strategies should see more opportunities to bring their value to the table.
• Ourselves: besides opportunities for consulting projects for the carriers, we also see anther fun opportunity, that is because of this structure change and carrier-order-based-production model, some previous leading copy cats begin to look for ways to convert themselves to the more innovation driven model.  I think we will see cooperation opportunities with leading copy cat in a short while. 　

----------Chinese Version----------
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中国3G牌照在1月7日出台,被很多人看成是拉动增长的重要事件。拖了4年之久的牌照发放始终给我的感觉是雷声大雨点儿小。但是最近看起来此中确实有与我们相关的机会，主要是以下几个方面：

机会的真实性：

• 中国消费者对手机的依赖程度一直比较高。同时，由于电信运营商在过去10年实现市场化过程中对于创造手机时尚和手机文化的投入，培育了3G的市场条件。从 量上看，由于短期内多数用户形成非语音消费习惯不太可能，运营商只能带动手机厂商，象近几年对数据业务的推广一样，首先投资于学生、年轻人和商务高端市 场，争取在几年内形成一定量的普及。目前据传，三家拿牌的运营商将根据各自发展规划建设3G网络，2009年、2010年预计3G网络及设备投资达 2800亿元左右，而在今年准备做出的3G终端补贴也在数百亿人民币，所以，3G的机会是确实的，但至少在两年内，这其实是各家运营商硬着头皮砸钱砸出来 的机会。最终的市场需求能否落实，这个机会能否长久，目前还真是问号。

近期谁在受益：

• 一些中国本土的手机厂商和韩国手机厂商是目前的既得利益者。一些前段时间危机重重，受山寨机重创的比较正规一点儿的中国本土手机厂商，比如夏新等，从运营商的3G投入中获得了新机会。由于运营商定制的产销模式，和高度整合的山寨机芯片的空缺，近期山寨机对本土3G终端厂商的威胁会得到一定减轻。目前，一些 之前的非领先手机品牌，比如中兴、宇龙酷派、新邮通等暂时通过最先取得了声势的TD获得了领导者的位置。同时，一些韩国手机厂商（比如LG，三星），也已 经从中分到了一块。据传，一些已经退出中国市场的国际品牌也在计划利用这个新机会重返中国手机市场,比如夏普等。
• 为运营商实现深度定制的咨询服务机构：由于移动通信运营商市场的竞争扩大，由中国移动一家独大的两家结构（大移动+小联通）变成实力更趋于相近的二加一结 构（大移动、大电信加小联通），因此，各家运营商都会更仰赖于市场认可。用户体验设计，市场调研，产品战略等方面的咨询公司应该从中能够找到一些可以向运 营商提供价值的机会。
• 我们青蛙：由于这个深度定制的产销模式，一些山寨品牌需要考虑改变原来的草莽作法。所以，在为运营商提供深度定制咨询服务之外，我们在山寨领先品牌向自主创新型的、比较规范品牌的转变需求中，也应可在近期看到项目机会。