iPhone 4S Triggers Operators' Warfare: Telecom Unicom's Market Value Losses

From brute force fighting to online warfare, the competition between operators is nothing short of strange, and the recent conflicts are more "about frame" trend, the fuse of the matter is the iPhone 4S.

Recently, China Telecom’s responsible online and mobile customer service manager Xu Weihua issued several articles on Weibo, arguing that Han Yuan, the general manager of China Unicom’s Longquan Branch, had an affiliate version of the iPhone and the telecommunications version of iPhone’s promotion on Weibo. This move has led to discussions and onlookers of a large number of operators.

On March 9th, China Telecom formally launched the iPhone 4S, becoming the second domestic operator after China Unicom to reach cooperation with Apple. This move immediately made the relationship between Unicom and Telecom become tense and delicate.

The microblogging published by Han Yuan used a question and answer purportedly from Apple's authorized stores to answer consumers' confusion about choosing Unicom’s iPhone 4S and choosing Telecom’s iPhone 4S.

For example, consumers asked Telecom iPhone 4S to be cheaper than China Unicom's iPhone 4S package. The answer indicates that China Unicom’s iPhone 4S package contains more content; consumers ask Telecom iPhone 4S for a cheaper price. The answer indicates that China Unicom’s iPhone 4S returns more every month. Consumers said that the telecommunications network was better than Unicom, and responded that the use of telecommunication numbers was equivalent to being locked up for a long time and was incompatible with other networks.

In addition, this microblogging also pointed out that telecommunications iPhone 4S can not access the Internet and make calls; China Unicom iPhone 4S roaming more countries, and China Unicom iPhone 4S package more, the price is cheaper and so on.

Outsiders can easily see that this is just a marketing tool for China Unicom. Although there is no lack of misleading information, just as Apple released the new iPad, Samsung and Huawei immediately publicly stated that their respective products are far better than the iPad, and consumers have their own judgment. However, this practice of Unicom staff touched the sensitive nerves of the telecom employees and began a strong counterattack.

“I have witnessed the anger and grievances of the telecommunications colleagues who saw this post, but most of them still argued eloquently and did not fabricate and dismantle the other side; I saw that mobile colleagues’ solidarity with telecommunications did not appear to be on the rise; Most of the colleagues remained silent and did not follow suit, and even some people expressed their disapproval of condemnation.” Xu Weihua described the complex mentality of operator employees in Weibo.

At this year's two sessions, Miao Xie, deputy to the National People's Congress and Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that "the three major telecom operators are in limited competition and cannot be regarded as absolute monopolies." Although this phrase has attracted many netizens' dissatisfaction, it has operated from several major operations. In the persistent "struggle" of employees, "limited competition" can also be seen.

Although the two sides disputed the iPhone 4S, it actually involved Unicom and Telecommunications in various aspects such as tariff, network, and roaming. However, the iPhone 4S merely provided a breakthrough.

In fact, after telecommunications started selling iPhones, the three major operators have joined the same battlefield. In contrast, China Unicom and telecommunications are more sensitive because the two have obtained a lot of attention through the iPhone and have drawn a group of high-end customers. But the price is high subsidies.

Compared with the fiery competition of operators, the reaction of the capital market is rather restrained and calm. On March 9 (Friday), China Telecom’s share price dropped 2.4% and China Unicom fell 0.56% on the same day as China Telecom’s iPhone 4S. On the contrary, China Mobile "take advantage of the fisherman's income," and the stock price rose 4.01% on that day.

More intriguing is that the market has digested news over the weekend and continued on Monday with Friday's stock price trend. However, China Unicom's decline began to exceed telecommunications: China Unicom fell 2.12%, China Telecom fell 0.89%, China Mobile continued to rise, rose 3.86%.

Combined, in two days, the market value of China Telecom lost HK$2.02 billion, and China Unicom lost HK$8.7 billion. The soldiers are not bloody, but they have become bloody.