In the recent held "2014 Operator Device & App Cooperation Conference", general manager of China Unicom Regulatory Affairs Department Zhou Renjie said, mobile resale enterprises (MVNO) that have cooperated with China Unicom have developed 550,000 subscribers, far more than the other two operators.
This number is not only far below the increased numbers of new subscribers of operator itself, but a world of difference with the expectation when they just got the virtual operating licenses, it also sounded the alarm for virtual operators, the telecommunication industry is not as simple as they have imagined and it’s not easy to overthrow as they wish.
Therefore, the virtual operators are returning rational from fanaticism, and thinking about how to survive and develop gradually. As Zhou Renjie sees it, the successful virtual operators in the future must be those that have made good cooperation with the basic operators, providing unique and differentiated services and welcomed by the consumers in the market segments.
Compared with the international markets, mobile resale services in domestic started last year, which is already late.Time is only enough for mobile resale enterprises continue to explore the development modes and perfect the operation systems in Time is less than a year. At the same time, because the virtual operators in domestic are different in market shares, development stages, regulatory policies, as well as cooperation models with foreign ones greatly, so they depend more on their own to explore and make developments.
For example, market supervision of overseas MVNO has been relatively mature, but it’s almost blank in domestic market and still belongs to the pilot exploration stage; multi cooperation models exist in overseas markets, but virtual operators can only cooperate with the three major operators in China and conduct the mobile resale services.
But starting late also brings an opportunity for development. Zhou Renjie thinks, compared with the 15-year commercial period and about 7% market shares of virtual operators in oversea markets, market development time is less than half a year in China, and the market share is only 4‱, which both bring huge market potential and development opportunities for virtual operators. However, Zhou Renjie also admits that virtual operators are also faced many with challenges,such as the saturation of traditional mobile communication market, unitary sale mode and different competition levels in various regions, as well as challenges of establishment of telecom service systems and groups, low brand awareness etc.