Insight
As the adoption of 5G has overtaken that of 4G, the problem of how to monetise it remains. We examined China Unicom’s industry innovations on this issue
In the early days of 5G, the improvements to mobile and broadband services beyond increased speed and latency were limited, and so the difference from 4G was small, which made it hard to market to consumer.
What primarily underpins 5G monetisation is pricing upsell – if operators want the consumers to pay more, they must offer more. That could be more data, faster speed or lower latency, for the operator to monetise the consumer more than they are able to for 4G. Therefore, the key to the successful future of 5G is monetisation in a variety of sectors. But how can this goal be achieved?
China Unicom is capitalising on the development of 5G through live-streaming traffic operations. “Value-based traffic operations” can help mobile operators launch both differentiated services and build an ecosystem which incorporates new apps and business models for these services.
While 5G rich apps (which include things such as Cloud games, AR, VR and 4K enhanced video) may well be useable on 4G, the efficiency and customer experience will be considerably lacking. China Unicom have realised this, and have already taken action.
One area this is happening in, is live streaming. China has the world’s largest livestreaming market, with $500 billion worth of goods being sold by live streamers in 2022, accounting for 25.4% of all online retail sales. The traditional and standard service packages can’t meet the high demands for live streamers, who need a reliable, high speed, low latency network. Taking this example of live-stream shopping, streamers need clear imaging with no lagging to effectively sell their products to those watching, which requires a high uplink bandwidth to guarantee the user experience. To combat this, China Unicom have launched multiple new 5G streaming service packages, that cover different scenarios such as on-the-go livestreaming, in markets and across borders.
The offers feature three different package sizes and upstream rates, which provide uplink speeds that are four times faster than general 5G packages. These packages compliment the global evolution of business from offline to online, in a world where everyone can be both the consumer and producer in live commerce. The company designed these new service offerings to suit different scenarios, such as livestreaming on-the-go, in markets, and across borders, enabling the shift from traffic-driven to experience-driven sales. The package creates more value from uplink channels and reduces the cost of livestreaming. This provides a reference model for global operators seeking 5G monetisation.
To more specifically highlight the difference between the normal 5G service package and the 5G livestreaming service package, in the instance of normal 5G service package, operators promote the downlink speed and capacity. However, 5G livestreaming service packages aim to monetise the uplink speed and capacity which is an innovation for 5G service business model.
In October 2023, China Unicom has recorded over 500,000 livestreaming users in China, enabling them to all get involved in the livestreaming industry. Moreover the 5G livestreaming service package has facilitated the development of the digital economy in rural areas, helping farmers more effectively promote and sell agricultural products. This year, China Unicom deployed new CT and IT technologies to update the network, that support much higher uplink speed from 150Mbps to 200 Mbps, more stable and high-definition experience for livestreaming services. Intelligent networks introduced Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) and 5G slicing, as well as Wi-Fi anti-interference slicing technologies, to deliver zero-freezing, high-definition experience for live streamers. Key to targeting these customers is precision marketing. With the help of Huawei SmartCare converged data platform, AI and big data can be used to model the user profiles of those who livestream, improving market insights so that potential customers can be quickly identified and marketed to.
In the future, more product launches are on the way. Industry innovations such as this from China Unicom allow the services will be expanded to cover areas like e-sport live streaming, enabling the benefits of 5G to reach a much wider audience, who will reap its real, tangible advantages.
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