Netizens who have downloaded the 5G Message APP said that the 5G Message APP is introduced as a communication and service software built by China Mobile based on the international RCS standard. It supports sending rich messages such as text, pictures, audio and video, geographica

China Mobile’s 5G messaging APP was removed from the shelves within one day of its release. This brief meeting revealed the tip of the iceberg of 5G news, and many questions emerged from netizens: Wasn’t it promised that there would be no need to download it just like text messages? Can it beat WeChat ?

Data map: 5G messaging white paper. Image source: China Mobile

The 5G Message APP is not for commercial use

Netizens who have downloaded the 5G Message APP said that the 5G Message APP is a communication and service software built by China Mobile based on the international RCS standard. It supports sending texts, pictures, Rich information such as audio and video, geographical location, etc.; you can also interact with the merchant's chat robot.

"It was promised to be integrated into text messages, but now it needs to be an independent APP?" On the 11th, China Mobile responded to netizens' concerns and said that it was not a product released for commercial use by customers.

"Because some terminals currently do not support the 5G messaging function, China Mobile has developed a 5G messaging APP, which allows developers to truly experience messaging interactive services after completing the development of Chatbot (intelligent chat robot) applications, attracting developers to actively participate in 5G messaging." Cooperation ecological construction." China Mobile explained.

operator's "5G messaging" can be traced back to April 8. On that day, the "5G Message White Paper" jointly released by the three major operators showed that the 5G messaging service is a new upgrade of the terminal's native basic short message service. In the future, users will replace 5G You can use on your mobile phone or upgrade your existing 4G/5G mobile phone to conveniently use 5G messaging services.

In fact, on June 26, 2019, during the 2019 Shanghai Mobile World Congress, China Mobile held the establishment of the 5G Message Innovation Open Laboratory and the RCS product launch conference, and released a new 5G product - RCS ( Converged Communications ) Commercial rich media messages.

At that time, China Mobile introduced that RCS commercial rich media messages use native SMS as the entry point and support rich media message forms such as graphics, text, audio and video, and robot interaction. Users can achieve a one-stop business experience such as search, interaction, and payment within the message window. , has the advantages of covering many terminals, high message delivery rate, mobile phone number is the user ID, and real-name authentication of the message port. This is basically the same as the current 5G news introduction.

Netizens are hotly discussing the 5G news. Weibo screenshot

Can you beat WeChat?

Another topic that the 5G news sparked discussion among many people is, "Whether it can rival or even replace the social dominant WeChat in the future." Some netizens said that it is possible for the three major operators to unite. Some netizens offered suggestions, "It may be possible to use APP to waive 5G traffic charges." The

market also gave considerable expectations. After the release of 5G news, Zheshang Securities once issued a research report saying that 5G messaging has achieved a leap in operator messaging services, through the operator's comprehensive coverage of 1.6 billion message portals, as well as strong precision marketing capabilities and direct access capabilities. , is expected to generate huge commercial value. It is predicted that the domestic industry customer market size from 2022 to 2025 will be 21.8 billion yuan to 58 billion yuan, and the market space is considerable.

However, some people believe that it is difficult for 5G news to surpass WeChat. A survey launched on the Weibo platform on the 11th showed that more than 70% of voting netizens believed that it would be difficult for 5G messaging apps to defeat WeChat because WeChat is too deeply tied to users.

Some netizens said that Fetion had no competitors at the time, text messages were very expensive, and smartphones were not widely popularized at the right time and in the right place. However, it still failed. Now it is even more difficult.

Data map: China Mobile releases RCS commercial rich media news. Picture source: Photo provided by China Mobile.

The strong rival of 5G news is Apple.

In addition to WeChat, 5G news also faces a strong enemy, that is Apple. Fu Liang, an independent telecommunications analyst at

, said that it would be difficult for Apple iOS to open this information service function to the outside world in a short period of time, especially for applications with underlying security requirements. Take a look at how long it took for the security software and number assistant to log into the iOS system?

For example, it took a lot of effort to put the underlying application Sogou Input Method on the Apple App Store. Apple iOS 8 only supports third-party input methods, which is the era of iPhone 6. What's more, Apple also has a similar product iMessage for 5G messages. Therefore, some netizens said, "It is not difficult to understand that 5G news was removed from the shelves by Apple one day after it went online."

html On the 11th, in response to the removal of the 5G Message APP, China Mobile stated that due to the joint release of the 5G Message white paper by the three operators in the early stage, which attracted high public attention, in order to protect the "5G Message" name from malicious preemption, China Mobile has recently removed the 5G Message app from the app. The market goes online. Due to some technical issues, the APP is temporarily offline and will be re-launched later.

According to foreign media reports, Apple is undergoing a major overhaul of iMessage. It recently submitted a new patent document for the iMessage application interface to the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the application document data is as long as 980 pages. It can be seen that Apple will not only not give up on iMessage, but will also increase its support.

Profit model and ecological construction are also tests

In addition to iMessage, analysts generally believe that whether 5G messaging can succeed also faces the test of ecological construction and profit model. First of all, the profit model of 5G messaging is unclear. Both WeChat and iMessage are free, but SMS is currently charged. Will 5G messaging replace SMS and be free?

The latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that mobile SMS business volume has grown rapidly and the year-on-year decline in revenue has narrowed. In the first quarter, mobile SMS business revenue was 9 billion yuan. Can the three major operators give up this part of their income?

In addition, in terms of ecological construction, Global Mobile Communications System Association GSMA has planned to include 5G messaging as a required function of 5G terminals. In the future, users can easily use 5G messaging services by replacing their 5G mobile phones or upgrading their existing 4G/5G mobile phones. Huawei , ZTE , Xiaomi and other terminal manufacturers also expressed full support for 5G messages.

So in a broad sense, most mobile users in the future will be 5G messaging users. But no matter what, 5G messaging must be used by users to be successful. How to enhance the user stickiness of 5G messaging is also a major problem faced by operators. (Reporter Wu Tao)