After stepping out of the building of Tokyo Shin Startup Co., Ltd., Son was beaming.

After Masayoshi Son paid a deposit to Japan's new venture company, he also received the first batch of 40,000 Kirin 1 mobile phones.

After getting the goods, Son quickly began to develop a series of package plans with the SoftBank team, aiming to attract a large number of new users.

……

On June 28, SoftBank's major business halls began to hang promotional posters.

"From now on, new and old SoftBank users will sign a monthly package agreement of 1980 yen, and in the next 24 months, they will pay a package amount of 1980 yen per month, which will not only allow unlimited phone hours, unlimited number of text messages, and 100MB of free traffic every month, but more importantly, we will give away Kirin 1st generation Internet mobile phone!

"Landline, broadband, mobile phone plans. For only 2,980 yen per month, the contract period is not less than 24 months, and you can get unlimited landline and broadband Internet access, plus 500 minutes of mobile phone talk time and 200MB of data per month. In addition, on the day of the service launch, you can get a Kirin mobile phone, which is limited to 300 units per day, on a first-come, first-served basis. Users who do not have a mobile phone will be compensated for a free Kirin mobile phone within the next two months!"

Dozens of SoftBank's business offices quickly began to take action, constantly promoting cheap packages to Japanese consumers. Originally, this package was cost-effective, not to mention the Kirin 1st generation mobile phone, which is very sought-after in the market and difficult to buy.

"This package, can you really get a free Kirin 1 generation mobile phone?"

"Yes, you can get it within two months at the latest, and if you can't get a mobile phone, you will be compensated 40,000 yen!"

"Okay, then let's apply for the package!"

"Please fill out the agreement, here, here, here, it needs to be signed. If there is no objection to the contract, it can be signed. ”

"Signed, can I get a Kirin 1 generation phone?"

"Ah, so fast, yes, it's in stock now, wait a minute, burn the mobile phone card on the spot, burn it, put the card on the phone, and you can use it." ”

Historically, Masayoshi Son was the telecom operator that SoftBank counterattacked to become the mainstream of Japan, and the main means was a cheap package, such as 980 yen per month, which can meet the most basic mobile phone communication services.

And to bundle terminals such as mobile phones, you need to pay more price. However, it is often cheaper than buying a separate telecommunications service package, and the mobile phones used as bargaining chips are all blockbuster terminals, so the plans quickly became popular in the Tokyo area.

The number of users who go to SoftBank's business offices every day to access the Internet and mobile phones has begun to surge. Originally, SoftBank attracted a maximum of 100 users a day, but now it is adding at least 500 users per day.

SoftBank officially began to lay out the telecom operation industry, which has been in the past two years, and in these two years, the telecom operation business has actually been very difficult, attracting less than 100,000 users and generating only a little more than 1 billion yen in annual revenue. The cost of broadband networks and base stations is more than 10 billion yen per year.

The company loses more than 9 billion yen annually in the telecommunications industry.

But Son firmly believes that as long as he can continue to attract new users, his revenue will grow much faster than his spending, and he will be profitable in a few years' time.

This idea is naturally correct, although the capital expenditure of the telecom operator industry in the future is very large. But once the user scale goes up and can cover the capital expenditure, it will be a steady stream of gold mines. Because, to attract a new user, even if you take subsidies, you can't make money for two years at most. But after two years, if users continue to use the service, they will continue to contribute to the profit.

Moreover, after the scale of users in the telecom market reaches a certain level, a huge moat will be formed. For example, if the mobile phone number has been used for many years, it cannot be easily changed because of the relationship between a large number of acquaintances and customers. Therefore, once it is used for a long time, it is often possible to pay the phone bill to the operator year after year.

All in all, operators are burning money at the beginning, and when the market is consolidated and there is no need to burn money too much, it is already a period of sitting back and enjoying the success and collecting profits stably.

At present, SoftBank's influence is still very average, and its ability to attract users is actually average based on cost performance. Therefore, it tries to use various means to stake the land.

Shinseki Group invests 80,000 Kirin Gen 1 mobile phones into the Japanese market every month. Among them, 40,000 units are supplied to SoftBank, and SoftBank can rely on 40,000 mobile phone terminals to allow users to surge by more than 40,000 per month.

In a year, it will bring an increase of 500,000 users! In addition, other package users may be able to increase by 1 million customers in a year!

Based on millions of customers, the annual loss will be reduced in a large area. If it grows to two or three million users, Son calculates that he will be able to achieve a balance between capital expenditure and revenue in the process of rapid expansion.

At this stage, whether it is broadband or mobile phones, it is the popularization stage. Whoever takes the lead will be ahead in the future. It is precisely for this reason that SoftBank is exerting its strength to make users grow faster than its peers!

After all, SoftBank's counterpart is NTT, which originally monopolized Japan's telecommunications service industry, but under the pressure of the Americans, Japan has opened up many industries, and it is no longer a few companies designated by the Japanese government to monopolize the business.

Japan's telecom operation industry, gradually opened up in the 90s, attracting a bunch of international operators to enter, for example, Vodafone is entering the Japanese market, the top three operators in the Japanese market. Later generations of SoftBank, because they did not have money to invest in the network in the early days, invested their money in more profitable venture capital. It wasn't until a company like Yahoo won the bet that it gradually began to have more capital to invest in money-burning jobs such as telecom operators.

But now SoftBank has not made money from venture capital, but relies on Lin Qi's $350 million investment in SoftBank to focus more on the telecommunications industry. This is also a gain and a loss for SoftBank. The sooner you burn money, the lower the cost you need to invest in the telecom operator industry in the future. Because, the earlier you enter the market, the sooner you occupy the users, and you can continue to invest in new networks by relying on users to pay network fees and phone bills far away. The better the quality of the network, the more users it will attract in turn.

However, now that SoftBank's telecommunications business continues to burn money, it has no spare energy to make venture capital. Even if SoftBank applies for listing, it is estimated that the capital obtained from the financing will be used in the telecommunications industry, rather than for venture capital.

In a sense, SoftBank's development path is very different from its original history.