Chapter 958 PHS Market
Holding the pager he had just acquired in his hand, Peng Xueqin felt very happy. Looking at the countless people on the street casting envious glances at him, he felt as comfortable as if he had drunk sour plum soup in the hot summer.
Stopping, Peng Xueqin dialed a number with his pager, and soon the other end of the line rang.
"Hello! Ah San, is that you? Yes! I'm Lao Peng! Peng Xueqin!" Holding the pager, Peng Xueqin's loud voice rang out, and he was calling an old friend from the village.
On the phone, he told Ah San that he had just bought a pager and asked him to write down the pager number so that if he needed anything, he could just call him directly.
As he was talking and walking, his motorcycle was parked in the alley behind. Just after turning the corner, the sound from the pager became intermittent and unclear. Peng Xueqin shouted "Hello, hello, hello" for a while, but still couldn't hear clearly. He was dazed holding the pager and suddenly remembered the points that the other party had told him to pay attention to when he bought the pager. Peng Xueqin came to his senses, took a few steps back, walked out of the alley to an open area and changed direction. The sound from the pager became clear again.
He simply stood there and talked to Asan on the phone with his pager for a long time before hanging up. At this time, a passerby saw Peng Xueqin using the pager to make a call and asked him about the pager.
Peng Xueqin grinned and said that the Xiaolingtong was good. He had just made a call and it was very good. The other party asked about the price and other things. Peng Xueqin spoke according to the words he had copied when he bought the Xiaolingtong. The other party nodded repeatedly after listening, which greatly satisfied Peng Xueqin's vanity.
Xiaolingtong became an instant hit, and sales in various places on that day were particularly gratifying. When the information was gathered to Shenghua, Li Daqi, Qin Zhengguo and others blushed with excitement. Although Song Yuanchao was also very happy, he had expected this result a long time ago. Although he was happy, he was not as excited as they were.
According to the current sales situation, the profit of Xiaolingtong is much higher than that of VCD products. Although the gross profit of the two is similar, Xiaolingtong is different from VCD as a communication product.
VCD is a household appliance, and generally a family only buys one, while communication products are calculated on an individual basis, which is a fundamental difference.
In addition, after the VCD is sold, the revenue of the product has been determined, including the cost, gross profit, and net profit, everything is clear.
But for PHS, the profit after selling is only the initial stage, and there will be long-term profit in the later stage. This is similar to paging stations. You have to use the pager after you buy it, right? When you use it, you have to pay a monthly fee, right? In addition to selling pagers, the most important profit of paging stations is to collect monthly fees, which is the source of long-term profit.
Compared with pagers, Xiaolingtong not only has a monthly rental fee, but more importantly, there is also a communication fee.
Don't underestimate the 0.2 yuan per minute local telephone communication fee and the higher out-of-town (long-distance) communication fee. Shenghua Telecom and the postal and telecommunications departments have a share of these fees. The more users use the Xiaolingtong, the higher their profits will be. One Xiaolingtong may not be a big deal, but what about 10,000? 100,000? 1 million or even 10 million? Calculated in this way, the share of the communication fee in a month is an extremely terrifying figure.
Li Daqi and Qin Zhengguo naturally knew this, otherwise they wouldn't be so excited.
It is so gratifying to see the sales volume in just one day. Moreover, there are not many cities in China that have opened the Xiaolingtong service . It is only opened in some key cities and the network coverage has only been initially formed. If the network coverage is gradually extended, the future prospects of this product will be even more optimistic.
"Daqi, we need to speed up the coverage of PHS over there . It costs a lot of money!" Qin Zhengguo said to Li Daqi, rubbing his hands.
Li Daqi nodded to show that he understood. He had been doing this all along. Fortunately, Shenghua Telecom had a foundation in the pager business in previous years. Otherwise, other companies would not be able to achieve the coverage level of Shenghua Xiaolingtong in such a short time .
But just like Qin Zhengguo said, all of this is money. Selling a Xiaolingtong not only brings a good profit on the machine, but more importantly, it brings a stable income every month. If the speed is slow, the money will naturally not be earned, which is a pity.
However, Li Daqi was also a little worried, mainly because several major cities in China have been covered, but the progress in second- and third-tier cities is not so smooth due to regional reasons. Although the postal and telecommunications departments are relatively cooperative with the PHS business, the local postal and telecommunications are two different things. The situation in each place is different, and each place has its own calculations, which makes it more troublesome to deal with.
"We should solve as many problems as we can. Also, we need to speed up the establishment of networks in rural areas and towns. Don't forget that the coverage rate of local telephones in such places is not high. Besides, the initial installation fee for local telephones is not low. This is the best opportunity for our Xiaolingtong to enter this market." Song Yuanchao reminded specifically.
Li Daqi nodded to show that he understood. The telephone installation fee was first introduced in 1980 because at that time the domestic postal and telecommunications departments wanted to rapidly develop telephone upgrades, including the introduction and replacement of old switches with advanced program-controlled switches.
Under such circumstances, the investment of the postal and telecommunications departments was very large, and it was impossible to achieve this investment relying on funding from higher authorities. Therefore, the higher authorities actually let the postal and telecommunications departments solve the funding problem themselves. Taking this into consideration, the so-called telephone installation fee emerged accordingly.
Shenghua has been cooperating with the postal and telecommunications departments for such a long time, and Shenghua's programmable switching system is currently one of the most advanced products in the country with the highest market share. Of course, Shenghua is most clear about the implementation of this policy.
The initial installation fee for a telephone was 5,000 yuan. You have to know that this was 5,000 yuan in the early 1980s! How much did Song Chaoyuan spend when he bought his first courtyard house in Yanjing? A courtyard with two entrances, plus the antique furniture in the courtyard, only cost 8,200 yuan.
If it is a most ordinary tenement house, you can get one for about 3,000 yuan. 5,000 yuan? Maybe you can get two houses with bargaining.
Even so, there are still many people who spend 5,000 yuan to install telephones. Song Chaoyuan was such a victim. He spent money and used connections to install a telephone in his courtyard. Later, the old house in Shanghai was the same, and he also spent 5,000 yuan.
Now, the initial installation fee for a telephone has dropped from the initial high of 5,000 yuan. The year before last it dropped to 3,000 yuan, almost halved. This year the initial installation fee has dropped to 2,000 yuan, which can be said to be much cheaper than at the beginning.
Even so, the initial installation fee of 2,000 yuan is still a high figure, which is not a small amount considering the current income of ordinary people. In addition, it is more convenient to install a telephone in the city because the communication infrastructure is relatively complete. Installing a telephone only requires connecting the wire from the outdoor telephone box to the home.
But it is different in rural areas. The original communication infrastructure in rural areas is not very good. There are many villages without a single telephone. Most of the time, only villages and towns have telephones, and these telephones are generally in places such as township agencies or township enterprises. Ordinary people rarely have them in their homes.
This is the case because the postal and telecommunications departments have taken into account the planning of cities first and rural areas later. In addition, the telephone usage rate in rural areas is far lower than that in cities. If the construction and coverage of rural communication infrastructure relies solely on these usage rates, the investment cost and return ratio are too low. Therefore, the postal and telecommunications departments are not keen on this aspect.
In this case, the role of Xiaolingtong is revealed.
Xiaolingtong is a microcellular technology communication that relies on base stations. In layman's terms, it is somewhat similar to sending a telegram. The wireless signal is converted from the base station through a certain frequency and then transmitted to the device to achieve the communication function.
This is somewhat different from ordinary telephone installation because there is no need to erect poles to pull telephone lines and other equipment.
To promote PHS in rural areas, it is only necessary to build a certain base station coverage, which is much smaller than the investment in fixed telephones in the postal and telecommunications departments. In addition, rural areas are different from cities. The terrain of cities is complex, with high and low buildings densely packed. These issues must be taken into consideration when setting up base stations in cities. In addition, microcellular technology has inherent weaknesses in base station coverage and penetration. For example, when Peng Xueqin used his PHS to make a call, when he walked to a place where the base station could not cover or the information was weak, the communication effect would naturally be problematic, and the signal source must be found to ensure smooth communication.
However, these problems do not exist in rural areas. The buildings in rural areas are low, not to mention the farmlands. The signal transmission is very smooth and the distance is farther than in cities. Moreover, the PHS does not need to cover too many areas in rural areas. As for the mountains and forests, there is no need to consider them at all. It is only necessary to consider the village where the rural area is located and a certain range around it.
In this way, it is only necessary to set up base stations before and after the village to fully meet the communication needs of a village with thousands of people.
In addition, the price of Xiaolingtong is not high. You can buy one for less than 1,000 yuan, with a monthly rental fee of 20 yuan and a charge of 0.2 yuan per minute. Ordinary farmers can afford it.
This is much cheaper than installing a landline phone and is more conducive to product promotion.
In addition, like urban residents, rural residents also have vanity and a competitive mentality. Holding a mobile phone in hand makes them look more prestigious when they go out. Besides, when they go to towns or counties to do something, wouldn't it be more convenient to have a mobile phone in hand? It also saves them from the trouble of not being able to find someone or having to ask for help when they need to make an urgent call.
