Investigation report on the market situation of China's mobile communication industry

In 1999, for China's mobile communications industry, it is undoubtedly a year of profound changes in the industry and further maturity. Whether it is from the sharp decline of mobile communication industry fees, the evolution of mobile phone equipment market, service project adjustment, service quality The gradual improvement is still the deepening of the reform of the operation system of the mobile communication industry and the approach of joining the footsteps of the wto. The mobile communication industry has achieved good development and has many shortcomings. In terms of market development, mobile communication users have further rapid growth, and the competition situation of operating enterprises has become more reasonable, laying a good foundation for China's mobile communication industry to enter the new century. This survey uses a random sampling method to investigate the development level and development of the Beijing mobile communication market in 1999 and consumers' perceptions and attitudes toward major events in the mobile communication market in 1999 through a survey of 302 ordinary consumers in the 8th district of Beijing. The research on the status quo of the market has been carried out. The survey results can infer the average consumer of 18-50 years old in the 8th district of Beijing City. To a certain extent, it also reflects the development status, market status and existing problems of China's mobile communication industry.

The status quo of mobile communication market at the end of 1999

Mobile phone popularity. According to the survey, slightly more than half of the 18- to 50-year-olds in Beijing use mobile phones. It can be seen that by the end of 1999, the development level of mobile phones in the Beijing market was relatively high, accounting for about half of the economically active population. There is a big difference in the ownership rate of consumers of different ages. According to the survey, the mobile phone ownership rates of 18-29 years old, 30-39 years old, 40-49 years old are 43.4%, 68.2% and 43.2%, respectively, assuming 50-54 years old. The group is the same as 40-49 years old, and the weighted average of the age structure proportion of the three age groups in Beijing is roughly calculated. At the end of 1999, the mobile phone penetration rate of Beijing City 8 District is about 30%, that is, there are about 3 mobile phones for every 10 people. . With a population of 6.5 million in Beijing's eight districts, the number of mobile phone users in the city reached 1.95 million.

Consumer characteristics. As far as consumers are concerned, in addition to age, there are bound to be large differences in the ownership of mobile phones of different genders, education, occupations and past people. According to the survey, in terms of gender, the male ownership rate is significantly higher than that of females. Nearly 60% of male respondents own mobile phones, while female respondents are 40% strong. In terms of age, young and middle-aged consumers aged 30-39 The possession rate is the highest, more than 2/3, 18-29 years old, and the 40-49 age group has a much lower ownership rate; as far as education is concerned, with the increase in education, the ownership rate is significantly higher, especially in high school and college education. As the demarcation point, the difference is obvious, that is, the mobile phone owners are mainly concentrated in the college education or above, and the education below the high school is less; from the income level, with the increase in income, the mobile phone ownership rate is significantly increased, with monthly income of 3,000 yuan and 1,500 yuan. For the demarcation point, the monthly income of 3,000 yuan or more is as high as 90%, and the lower than 1,500 yuan is 12-30%, which is lower than the average possession rate. The 1,500-3,000 yuan is about 65%, which is also higher than the average possession rate. From the perspective of occupational types, mobile phones have the most management personnel in enterprises and institutions, followed by individual owners, freelancers and civil servants. Once again, they are professional and technical personnel and ordinary employees. Workers and service personnel have the lowest ownership rate of only 5%. It can be seen that the mobile phone user group is mainly concentrated in the 30-39 years old, and the monthly income of college graduates or above is more than 1,500 yuan, especially the consumer group of more than 3,000 yuan. It is worth noting that middle-income people with monthly income of 1,500 yuan are increasingly becoming the trend of mobile phone popularity. The main target consumption.

For China Mobile Communications Corporation and China Unicom, two major operators in the Beijing market, there are some nuances in the age group. In comparison, China Unicom is favored by young people aged 18-29, while China Mobile communication is favored by young and middle-aged people over the age of 30.

Mobile phone brands. According to the survey, at the end of 1999, the brand distribution of the Beijing mobile phone market has not changed much compared with the past. The traditional top three Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia still occupy the leading position in the market. The market share of the three is more than 80%, and other brands are hard to find. Followed by Siemens, Philips, Samsung and other second group brands, the market share of about 10%, other brands such as Panasonic, Alcatel, Qualcomm and other foreign brands, market share is very low. In the telecom Great Wall cdma mobile phone, in addition to Motorola, there are mainly Samsung, Qualcomm and other brands. It is worth noting that although 1999 was a year in which many domestic mobile phone manufacturers launched large-scale advertising campaigns, the market situation in Beijing still failed to leave too much market space for domestic mobile phones, and the domestic mobile phone market did not perform well. For historical reasons, there are also reasons for its technology, publicity and service strategy. How to do a good job in the domestic mobile phone, and share a piece of it in the mobile phone market, the road is still long.

1999 Development Status of Mobile Communications

The development trend of mobile communication. According to the survey, 34.4% of all respondents with mobile phones purchased mobile phones before 1998, 40.9% purchased mobile phones in 1998, and 24.7% purchased in 1999. It can be seen that in recent years, 1998 was the fastest growing year for mobile phones. Although there is a certain deviation in the survey data, it is still enough to show that the growth rate of Beijing mobile phones nearly doubled in 1998. In fact, the number of mobile phone users nationwide increased from 10 million to XX million in 1998. In 1999, although the mobile phone market was still in rapid growth, the growth rate has slowed significantly. From the perspective of the adjustment, the market growth in Beijing in 1999 was slower than that in 1998. In Beijing, a city with more developed economy, the mobile phone penetration rate is almost 30%. Although the mobile phone network tariffs continue to decrease during the year, other tariffs such as call unit price and monthly subscription fee remain unchanged, and mobile phone growth slows down. It is difficult to understand, but it is inferred that the development trend of the national market is biased. Therefore, in a big city with high mobile phone penetration rate in Beijing, in order to promote the sustainable development of mobile phones, further reducing the use cost of mobile phones, including long-term costs such as call price, bare metal price, network access fee and monthly fee, will be an inevitable s Choice.

The characteristics and trends of mobile phone consumer groups. In terms of the characteristics of consumers who bought mobile phones in 1999, men are still higher than women in terms of gender, accounting for 55% and 45% respectively; from the age point of view, young people aged 18-29 and 30-39 Young people are the mainstays, accounting for about 43% respectively; from the academic background, they are mainly college graduates, especially those with college or higher education; from the income perspective, the monthly income is 1500-3000 yuan, followed by monthly income 3000-5000. Yuan and 800-1500 yuan. Compared with the purchasers in 1998, the purchasers in 1999 showed some obvious trends. Although female buyers are still in a minority, female buyers are increasing, from 36.5% to 45.1%. The age distribution of purchasers tends to be scattered, from young people aged 30-39 years old to young people aged 18-29 and middle-aged people over 40 years old. The purchasers continue to focus on highly educated people, but the trend is not very obvious, which may be related to the general higher education of Beijing consumers. Due to the continuous downward adjustment of various prices of mobile phones, mobile phone consumption has become more and more popular, enabling mobile phones to be purchased for more low- and middle-income earners. This is reflected in the fact that in 1999, purchasers further turned to middle- and low-income people, and dispersed to various income groups, while high income. Due to the high penetration rate, the proportion of purchases has declined.

Consumer operators and mobile phone brand choices. The survey shows that, similar to 1998, the basic situation of operators in 1999 is still more mobile communication companies than China Unicom. The proportion of telecom Great Wall cdma selection is still very low, but compared with 1998, the choice of Chinese mobile communication companies in 1999 decreased slightly. China Unicom has risen slightly, and the telecom Great Wall cdma has stabilized slightly. The slow rise of China Unicom shows that the mobile communication market is slowly experiencing a market competition that is conducive to consumers. From the choice of consumers' mobile phones, in addition to the traditional top three still dominate, and Motorola has further strengthened, the choice of mobile phones is further diversified, and the brands such as Siemens, Philips and Samsung in the second group have increased. 1-4 percentage points range, while domestic brands are still thunderous, with little rain and few consumer choices.

Consumer buying behavior. The development of China's mobile communications industry has now gone through more than a decade. Early mobile phone consumers are increasingly needing to change their mobile phones or purchase new mobile phones to re-enter the network and eliminate the original mobile phones. In the new mobile phones purchased in 1999, these two situations are more obvious. According to the survey, in 1999, for every 6 mobile phones sold, one was newly purchased mobile phones, and the original mobile phones were eliminated. One was newly purchased mobile phones, replacing the original mobile phones, and the other four were the first to purchase mobile phones. . Among them, for China Mobile Communications Corporation users, the proportion of networked and replacement mobile phones was 9.1% and 18.2% respectively, the first time Internet users accounted for 72.7%, and China Unicom users accounted for 58.8% of the first time, eliminating And replacing the original mobile phone accounted for 23.5% and 17.7% respectively. All of them are newly connected or eliminated from the original mobile phone, and there is no replacement mobile phone.

price. The survey shows that in 1999, the price of bare metal in the mobile phone market was further declining, and the price difference was very large, some as high as 6,000 yuan or more, and some as low as 1,000 yuan. This is further subdivided with the mobile phone market, and the product/service function gradually Pulling the grade is closely related. The average price of bare metal has dropped to around XX yuan, which is the main reason why mobile phone buyers are gradually filtering to the middle and low income groups. As for the network access fee, it was lowered twice in 1999, among which China Mobile Communications Corporation lowered it to 1,000 yuan and 700 yuan respectively, with an average of 920; China Unicom lowered it to 780 yuan and 300-500 yuan respectively, with an average of 580 yuan. about. Overall, the survey showed a minimum of 300 yuan, the highest is only 1,250 yuan, and the average level is about 780 yuan.

1999 Consumers' Cognition of Major Events in the Mobile Communication Market

In 1999, the mobile communication market was hot, and it covered many aspects such as tariff policy, operator service, mobile terminal and China-US wto telecommunications agreement. According to the survey, the highest awareness of respondents was the reduction of mobile phone tariffs, followed by the basic content of the China-US wto related telecommunications agreement. Once again, dual-band mobile phones entered the market and China Mobile Communications Corporation was divested from China Telecom. Respondents were also more aware of the Internet phone and China Unicom mobile phone direct dial ip phone. Telecom Great Wall cdma mobile phone call price cuts half, prepaid sim card mobile phone launch, online auction mobile phone, mobile phone on-demand information value-added services and Unicom mobile phone free mailing bill list and other awareness is not high, ranking last. Looking at the above hot issues, it can be seen that the highest awareness of respondents is related to the industrial policy issues of mobile communications, especially the tariff policy, which shows consumers' concern about mobile phone tariff policies. Due to the small size of users, the Great Wall cdma mobile phone has a small impact on hotspot policies, so the recognition is not high. Secondly, it is concerned about all kinds of mobile phone products, especially the launch of dual-band mobile phones that have become hot spots at the beginning of last year, and the launch of domestic mobile phones that advertised in the year. Some of the service items launched by operators, such as prepaid SIM card mobile phones, mobile phone on-demand information value-added services and payment services, are not very high. On the one hand, consumers are not very concerned about these issues, and they also show services launched by operators. Insufficient publicity or limited target audience. As for the three things that the respondents were most impressed with the above-mentioned hot events, the results showed that the ranking of the most impressive events was basically consistent with the respondents' perceptions. The highest impression was the reduction of mobile phone tariffs and the basic content of the China-US wto telecommunications agreement. Secondly, China Mobile Communications Corporation divested from China Telecom, dual-band mobile phones entered the market and domestic mobile phones entered the market, etc., and the rankings were basically consistent with the ranking of recognition.

1999 Reasons for Influencing Mobile Phone Purchase and Consumers' Evaluation of Market Status

The survey shows that in 1999, the main reason that affected respondents to buy mobile phones is that the two-way charging is unreasonable, followed by alternatives, I can’t use them, and the unit price is high. Again, the price of bare metal is high. Internet fees are high and monthly fees are high. Other reasons such as service and voice quality are not very important. Taken together, apart from the lack of alternatives and the fact that there is no need for the demand, the main reason that affects the purchase of potential consumers is the price, especially the unit price of the call. The two-way charge is ultimately the question of the unit price of the mobile phone. This has become a problem. The main obstacle to buying a mobile phone. For voice quality, carrier service quality, etc., since the potential user does not use the mobile phone, it is only a question that will be considered after purchasing the mobile phone.

Potential users of different ages and income levels also have significant differences in the main factors affecting the purchase and use of mobile phones. Studies have shown that in addition to unreasonable two-way charges and alternatives, the influencing factors for young people aged 18-29 are the high unit price of calls and the high bare metal price, and the most important reason for middle-aged people over 40 years old to influence purchases. It is the reason why I don't need to show it. From the income level, in addition to the two-way charges are unreasonable and there are substitutes, the main reason for the middle and low income people is that the unit price of the call is too high and I can't use it. The middle income person is the opposite, while the high income person does not buy it. It is because there are alternatives and two-way charges are unreasonable. This shows that the younger the age, the lower the income level, and the higher the unit price of the call affects their purchase behavior. Therefore, under the current circumstances, the mobile phone market needs to achieve faster growth, and still need to continuously reduce the cost, especially the unit price of the call and the bare metal price.

The survey shows that the most dissatisfied aspects of the respondents' evaluation of the mobile communication industry in 1999, the most important thing is that the unit price of mobile phone calls is high, much higher than other items, followed by high bare metal prices, high network access fees and monthly rents. Fees are high, the difference between the three is not big, once again, the mobile phone accessories are shoddy, and the poor call quality, poor coverage, poor mobile phone repair service, inability to get a detailed list of calls and inconvenient payment are not very high. And this evaluation is not obvious in people of different ages, income and other characteristics. This again shows that the high unit price of calls and high tariff levels such as mobile phone prices, network access fees and monthly subscription fees are both the most dissatisfied aspects of consumers' market status in 1999 and the most important obstacles affecting potential users to purchase mobile phones. Therefore, constantly lowering the various tariff standards of mobile phones will continue to be the general trend of the development of the mobile phone market in the future, and with the continuous maturity of the mobile communication industry and the competitive pressure brought by wto, it will be taken for granted.