🔑 TheKey (TKY) news revealed: Largest Chinese chipmaker & largest Chinese telecom company partnered

The TheKey (TKY) news that was announced yesterday has been revealed: TheKey is partnering with China Unicom and Tsinghua Unigroup, both huge companies.

CHINA UNICOM

China Unicom is, according to Wikipedia, the world's fourth-largest mobile service provider by subscriber base. China Unicom is state owned and has a market capitalization of $350 Billion USD, and has about 273 million subscribers/users. China Unicom is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange as well as having subsidiaries in Hong Kong and the New York Stock Exchange.

When taking a partnership with TheKey into account it is clear to see the advantages that these parties can offer eachother. Not only does TheKey offer identification verification, which could be used for signing up new subscribers (or logging in and out of existing accounts), but it also gives China Unicom an identity module upon which, for example, payment services could be built (similar to Alipay). Of course, it is also likely to be used in billing. It is my expectation that mobile service providers will aim to become integral to the future, and we are likely going to see a world where your mobile phone serves both as a communication device, but also as a payments platform and an identification method. Onboarding service providers as China Unicom is essential to make this a success.

TSINGHUA UNIGROUP

Tsinghua Unigroup is the world's largest chip producer, which designs, develops and markets all kinds of chips from wifi and cellular, radiofrequency receivers, to parts used in MP3 players and other consumer goods. If you google their name you'll find no shortage of mega-deals worth billions each. It is clear that Tsinghua Unigroup is hugely huge. Possibly an even bigger partner than China Unicom, if I am to judge them based on how much money is being thrown around.

It is harder to pinpoint the service that TheKey and Tsinghua Unigroup can offer eachother but if I had to guess I would say this has to do with the hardware components of mobile phone identity services. If mobile phones are to become reliable payments and identification devices then perhaps collaboration with the chip producers of these devices is beneficial to provide security to users. I could see, for example, developments like built-in hardware 'wallets' that are integrated into mobile devices. Just like with stolen funds, identity theft is something that shouldn't be underestimated.

But, this is wild speculation on my side. For all I know, Tsinghua Unigroup simply wants to register their customers with TheKey and nothing more but that would be rather unambitious if true.

While it's no Microsoft, or Alibaba/Baidu, I do believe these mega-corporations are very exciting partners for TheKey to have. If TheKey manages to 'sign up' all of China Unicom's users that would bring the total users on their network to around 500 million users: more than the population of the United States. Coupled with the fact that China Unicom and Tsinghua Unigroup are worth half a trillion USD combined, that's huge.

Western investors may lack some excitement due to this due to unfamiliarity with Asian companies. It's probably true that a Microsoft partnership would have increased the price more due to western excitement, but I do believe that these two partnerships are excellent for actual implementation and adoption.

I am most excited not because this is a 'flat partnership' without depth. It would be one thing to sign up users from cities, but these partnerships smell more strategical to me than that. It seems to me like TheKey is setting up to become a very integral part of Chinese society and they are positioning themselves exceptionally well.

>> Click here to read the official announcement on Medium! <<

(Art by Roy Lichtenstein)