All number of the Chinese mobile SMS was 0.5% growth in the first quarter, but 1-to-1 SMS was 10.9% negative growth.

I reported "Chinese mobile SMS was substantially negative growth in 2012" before, but MIIT published the new report about it a few days ago.

According to the report, the total number of Chinese SMS was 232.14 billion cases in the first quarter, and it was 0.5% growth compared to last year. But the number of 1-to-1 SMS was 124.74 billion cases, and it was 10.9% negative growth compared to last year.

In China, there are two main use pattern of SMS. One of them is used as the marketing tool by a company, and they send the marketing information to many people via SMS. And another one is used as the method of 1-to-1 communication, many people send their update information via SMS to friend, family and so forth.

As a result, it can be said that mainly 1-to-1 SMS was affected by WeChat or other similar services at this time. But 1-to-N SMS may be also possibly affected as same as 1-to-1 SMS in near future, because Tencent is providing the marketing tool of WeChat, and its marketing method is becoming popular day by day in China.



China Mobile and China Telecom already started each countermeasure, but after seeing this results, they must also start the other countermeasure that is including "charge the special fee for WeChat".

We have to continue watching the action from both side.


Source => TechWeb, MIIT

China Mobile also started to provide "Public Platform" for the Feixin corporate accounts.

Few days ago, I explained the new action of China Telecom challenging to WeChat.
And at this time, China Mobile also started the new action. It is that they started to provide "Public Platform" for the Feixin(It's their SMS service.) corporate accounts.

The name of this platform is as same as Weixin's, and the UI of this platform is also almost same.

The feature of this platform providing is also almost same as Weixin's, but there is a one interesting feature. It is a questionnaire survey feature.

 


Another difference is the method of applying "Verified Account". As I explained before, you have to get 500+ followers to become a verified account  on WeChat, but about Feixin, you have to get 100+ followers. But about feixin, you also have to submit the operating license in China to become a verified account on there.
*It seems that they don't target to the foreign companies at this time.


China Telecom started to provide the similar apps to WeChat, and China Mobile started to provide the similar platform to WeChat. Well, how about China Unicom?

We have to keep watching their next actions.


Source => LeiPhone, Public Platform of Feixin

Chinese mobile SMS was substantially negative growth in 2012. WeChat or Weibo had impact on it?

MIIT released the report that is written about the summary of Chinese mobile SMS, and this report said that the number of SMS messages was 897.31 billion incidents in 2012.

This report also said that the number of Chinese SMS users are 765 million people in 2012. The number of Chinese mobile user was about 1100 million people in the end of 2012, hence it follows that about 70% of mobile users use SMS in China.

Actually SMS is the most popular method of communication by mobile phone in China, and many people use it to send the greeting at holiday or memorial day, such as Chinese new year.

But going back to the subject, the number of SMS messages was increasing only 2.1% compared to 2011. And the number of mobile phone users in China was increasing about 11% compared to the previous year, so it can be said that the number of SMS messages was substantially negative growth in 2012.

One of this reason was the rapid progress of WeChat or Weibo. Mainly young people shifted the communication method on mobile phone from SMS to WeChat or Weibo. WeChat and Weibo already each have over 300 million users, and this growth will continue in 2013. So the number of SMS messages may be truly negative growth in 2013.

Source => cnBeta, Sohu IT