The "marriage" between the two is likely to bear fruit in new fields and create new possibilities.
Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation unconditionally approved the case of the establishment of a new joint venture between China Unicom Innovation and Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Tencent Industrial Venture Capital Co., Ltd. , which attracted attention. In fact, the joint venture was released on October 27, and it was not attracting market attention at that time. It was not until November 2 that the China Unicom A shares price hit the limit of that the market reacted. Why didn't
get attention at the beginning? Because the joint venture itself is a common event. China Unicom's mixed reform did not start now, and it can be traced back to August 2017. China Unicom introduced a large number of leading Internet companies through financing. Later, in February 2018, external investors such as Baidu , Alibaba , Tencent , JD were nominated for seats on the board of directors of China Unicom. Since then, China Unicom and Tencent have become closer and closer. In 2018, China Unicom and Tencent signed a cooperation framework agreement, jointly built the "5G e-sports joint laboratory" in 2019, and jointly released the "2021 China Smart Culture and Tourism 5G Application White Paper" in 2021. Therefore, the cooperation of the joint venture is based on the timeline of China Unicom's mixed-ownership reform, but China Unicom has taken another step forward in the direction of mixed-ownership reform.
Why did the market start to pay attention to it again on November 2? It originated from market rumors that CITIC Group acquired Tencent. Although the former refuted the rumors, investors are still looking for information related to Tencent. So they paid attention to the cooperation between China Unicom and Tencent and began to deeply analyze the value behind this joint venture.
There is no doubt that the joint venture will inject vitality into China Unicom. Among the three major operators, China Unicom has a relatively awkward position and urgently needs to open up a new battlefield. Through diversified businesses, China Unicom will gain competitive advantages in emerging fields, especially the digital economy, and then maintain a place in the competition among the three major operators with its business uniqueness. The business of the
associate company seems ordinary, but it is in line with the current resource endowments of China Unicom and Tencent. The two businesses engaged in by the associate are CDN content distribution and edge computing . Specifically, CDN content distribution is aimed at live broadcast, conference, video website and other industries, and is used to accelerate video and improve user experience. CDN business is currently a mature industry, but for China Unicom and Tencent, CDN is still vibrant: China Unicom has communication infrastructure, which can provide communication technical support for CDN services, and can also arrange more communication infrastructure resources; Tencent has a large demand, and Tencent Video and Tencent Live Broadcast need to be said, WeChat conferences have also started charging fees recently, because the WeChat conference function requires resources to consume, and this resource is largely related to CDN services. Therefore, after the establishment of the associate company, the supply and demand of the CDN business have been matched.
Edge computing evolved from cloud computing. The biggest demand for edge computing is in the industrial logistics field. For example, there are a large number of robots that carry AGV in logistics warehouses. These robots are huge and require the system to accurately control each individual with low latency. Edge computing can improve the stability of the entire system, improve response speed, and reduce delay. The real significance of the promotion of
5G lies in the Internet of Things, and the most important application of the Internet of Things at present is the fully connected factory. A large number of equipment, including a fully connected factory composed of handling robots and industrial robots, edge computing is a necessity. The three major operators have already competed in the field of fully connected factories, and with Tencent's support of edge computing, it will be "like a tiger's wing" for China Unicom, which may achieve China Unicom's leap in this field.
On Tencent, cloud computing is its strength, but cloud computing power is mainly concentrated in the data center, and it does not have the opportunity to enter the edge side. However, China Unicom can just help Tencent enter the edge side through its G-end and B-end projects, thereby completing the layout of the edge computing server.
In summary, Unicom has infrastructure and many projects for digital transformation of in government and state-owned enterprises. Tencent has the demand for CDN, which can also export a large amount of soft power to enhance the user experience of the Unicom project. At the moment when digital government integration and fully connected factories nationwide, the value generated by the joint venture may exceed expectations.
The joint venture between China Unicom and Tencent is also a useful attempt between state-owned enterprises and Internet companies. For Internet companies, to achieve business diversification, they can only empower the real economy, but the Internet lacks channels in empowering the B-end and G-ends. In this regard, state-owned enterprises happen to have advantages, but lack technical soft power. The "marriage" between the two is likely to bear fruit in new fields and create new possibilities.
Special commentator of Red Star News Pan Helin (Co-Director and Researcher of the Research Center of Digital Economy and Financial Innovation, Zhejiang University International Joint Business School)
Editor Wang Yintao
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