Our reporter Li Qiaoyu

　　Trainee reporter Xu Linyan

　　"Hefeixin will stop providing services from September 30, 2022." Recently, China Mobile and Fetion's official websites released the "Announcement on the Adjustment of Hefeixin Business Development". With the suspension of services, users will not be able to log in and use Hefeixin. Fetion.

　　He Fetion, formerly known as Fetion, carries the memory of a generation.

After the above news was released, many netizens sighed on social media, "It's another tear of the times", "When there was no WeChat in those days, Fetion was all used"... In addition to the emotion, some old users admitted frankly, if it weren't for this official announcement Stop the service, I don't even remember having a Fetion account.

　　On July 25, reporters from Securities Daily searched for "Fetion" and "Hefeixin" in the app stores of Apple mobile phones and Android mobile phones respectively, but failed to find relevant applications.

　　He Fetion withdrew from the stage of history

　　"(And) Fetion is long overdue to withdraw from the market." Wang Zhengnan, a senior observer of the telecom operator industry, told the "Securities Daily" reporter.

　　Fetion was born in the 2G era.

At that time, instant messaging had two problems.

On the one hand, social software such as QQ, which appeared at that time, could not deliver information to users who did not log in immediately; on the other hand, the price of SMS products that could achieve instant delivery was relatively high, and the three major operators provided users with tariff packages. The number of short messages contained in it is difficult to meet the communication needs of users.

　　Fetion, which was born in 2007, became an instant hit with the advantages of free text messages and timely delivery of information even when friends are offline.

Relevant statistics show that during Fetion’s 15 years of operation, there were nearly 500 million registered users at its peak and nearly 100 million active users at its peak.

　　"On the one hand, operators have noticed the pain points of users and hope to use this business to seize the market; on the other hand, they also intend to explore new performance increments." Wang Zhengnan told reporters that in addition to Fetion, China Telecom has also launched "Wings" with similar business forms. letter".

　　Although operators have seized the opportunity, they are hard to beat the rising stars.

WeChat was born in 2011, and quickly grabbed the instant messaging market from operators with functions such as OTT calls and picture transmission. At the same time, related functions also brought heavy blows to communication operators.

　　In the face of challenges, Fetion has also actively transformed.

In 2016, Fetion changed its name to Hefeixin.

Prior to this, in 2013, China Mobile officially released the new commercial main brand "and! He" (hereinafter referred to as the "And" brand), announcing that the mobile 4G network began to be deployed nationwide.

China Mobile has launched a series of sub-brands under the "He" brand.

　　"Hefeixin is the integration of the previous Fetion into the 'He' brand." Fu Liang, an analyst in the communications industry, told the Securities Daily reporter, "Hefeixin includes Fetion's business and extends to the field of government and enterprise services."

　　Today, WeChat has become the largest social software in China.

According to Tencent’s financial report for the first quarter of 2022, WeChat’s combined monthly active accounts were 1.288 billion, compared with 1.242 billion in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%.

In the field of government and enterprise services, Hefeixin is also facing greater competitive pressure, such as Ali's DingTalk and Tencent's corporate WeChat.

　　IM race track competition continues

　　The withdrawal of Fetion and Fetion from the historical stage does not mean the end of the instant messaging competition. In fact, the competition in this field is being presented in a new form.

　　In November 2021, China Unicom announced the launch of 5G messaging trial commercialization; at the end of last year, China Mobile also announced the completion of the 5G messaging private network pilot; on January 25 this year, China Telecom officially announced 5G commercialization, marking the development of 5G messaging into a new phase. stage.

　　In the 5G era, 5G messages once again bear the expectations of communication operators for instant messaging.

　　"The Fetion business is completely incomparable to 5G news, and the two parties are not even on the same order of magnitude." Wang Zhengnan told reporters, "In the future, the rich media in the 5G era can not only serve the instant messaging business, but also surpass WeChat to achieve what WeChat is difficult to achieve. Function."

　　"After the implementation of the speed-up and fee-reduction policy, operators need to look for profit growth points in emerging businesses." Fu Liang said in an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily that under policy guidance and fierce competition, communication operators are in the process of improving their business structure. Transformation, innovative services gradually take on the important task of increasing the operator's performance.

　　In the latest operating data for June, the total number of China Mobile's mobile business customers was 970 million, with a net increase of 3.252 million in June, and the number of 5G package customers reached 511 million; the number of China Telecom mobile users was 384 million. A net increase of 3.07 million households, 5G package users reached 231 million; China Unicom's "big connection" users reached 805 million, 5G package users reached 185 million, IoT terminal connections reached 336 million, 5G industry virtual The number of private network service customers was 2014.

　　In Wang Zhengnan's view, another update of the instant messaging track will not come too soon.

"At present, the positive side is that the three major operators have unified standards for 5G messages, and can also provide support for 5G messages technically. However, we have to admit that the promotion of 5G messages requires the joint efforts of upstream and downstream." (Securities daily)