Abstract:
What is the hottest industry in 2026? The answer is probably: Internet cafe.
Maybe some people think that the bad reviewer is joking. These days, young people are not very good at using computers. It would be good if the Internet cafes do not close down, and they are still popular? Don't worry, take a look at these posts first... "It's been a long time since I opened the Internet cafe, and I visited three Internet cafes in a row and they were all full."
"Every seat was packed at five o'clock in the morning."
“It’s impossible to play during peak times like holidays without making a reservation.”
If you can’t get a chance at an Internet cafe, what year is it today...
There is something even more shocking.
In the comments of netizens, I found that today’s Internet cafes have evolved a lot.
The Internet cafe in my memory was full of melon seed shells and poorly decorated. There was a place where computers were placed in a row and business started.
Now, it looks like this ↓
The single private rooms are decorated like their own e-sports rooms, and some even have a bed for sleeping ↓
Wait a minute, how can you go to bed without taking a shower?
Well, this type of Internet cafe has its own shower room, which is free and has toiletries and a hair dryer.
You can even get your shoes shined, laundry done, and your car washed for free.
The hardware configuration is also surprising: the graphics card is 5080, the CPU is 9800X3D, and the monitor is Zhuowei.
Only these three pieces, the recent price is around 24,000, which can buy 4 MacBook Neos (price starting from 5,499). There are still some notebooks left.
But! !
What makes the bad reviewer’s pupils tremble the most is that the freshly cooked food in some Internet cafes will really make the bar girl go to the back kitchen to fry it.
They converted the small cubicle behind the bar into a small kitchen, complete with fryers and range hoods.
Where did this come from?
Today's Internet cafes have completely aroused the curiosity of the bad reviews, and it is worth studying. The bad reviews have learned a lot after consulting industry veterans and sorting it out.
Let’s talk about Internet cafes today~
(In fact, it is now divided into many categories, such as Internet cafes, Internet cafes, e-sports halls, e-sports complexes, etc. To facilitate everyone’s understanding, this article will simply refer to them as Internet cafes)
The argument that Internet cafes have successfully achieved big results has only happened in the past year or so.
But the starting point of the revival is - 2023.
When Internet cafe owners, industry associations and supply chain manufacturers talk about Internet cafes, they all mention this year.
Having been working in the industry for many years, @ Uncle Zhai’s Digital World has the impression that the most people came to him for consultation in 2023.
Those who don’t have a store want to open a store, and those who have a store want to expand,
For a while, I had people coming in for consultation almost every day.
On the contrary, in 2026, which seems to be in full swing, because the threshold is high, there are not as many people asking as before.
Why will Internet cafes become popular this year?
First, the core thrust of Internet cafe revival:
Computer games are becoming popular again.
Ma Yunxiang, president of the Yiyang Internet Service Association and CEO of Hunan Engine Interactive Entertainment, told Bianpingjun, "Internet cafes and cinemas have the same logic. Whether cinemas are doing well this year depends on whether there are blockbusters in the upstream. Cinemas are just places to undertake movie content, and the same is true for Internet cafes."
Internet cafes look like they are selling machines, but what determines customer flow is games.
So this industry has been rising and falling with games for many years.
The last round of decline started in 2016, when mobile games exploded in popularity. "Honor of Kings" exceeded 200 million registered users less than one year after its official launch, which was more than Chinese stock investors.
China’s stock investors will not exceed 200 million until 2022
To follow the analogy of theaters: when everyone watches short dramas on their mobile phones, the appeal of theaters is drastically diluted.
At that time, there was a chill in the Internet cafes. Everyone felt that a large number of people had been taken away from the computer, and once the entertainment methods changed, they might not be able to come back.
Until "PUBG" gave Internet cafes a hard blow.
This fast-growing FPS game (first-person shooter) has become a phenomenon-level hit and has had two major impacts.
First of all, it is not really a brilliant game optimization, allowing gamers to discover that
some games really have the flavor of playing in Internet cafes, and the Internet cafes have to queue up again.
Secondly, Internet cafe owners found that the game could not run well and was not smooth on the old machines in Internet cafes. Customers would not come back if the experience was poor.
The hardware arms race had begun.
At that time, there were many reports, and the bosses all said that under this wave of chicken craze, stores with fast changing configurations would do better business.
Some people may not understand. Wouldn’t it be better to update the configuration of your computer? Why do you have to go to an Internet cafe?
Because the mining boom was still going on at the time, and hardware was at a premium, for many people, ordinary games could be played on an ordinary computer. Updating a set of equipment for "PUBG" was far less reliable and affordable than going to an Internet cafe.
What's more, Internet cafes are closely integrated with games. Many games have special privileges, which is really not the same as at home.
Who is saving Internet cafes at this stage?
"League of Legends", "Dauntless Contract", "Operation Delta", "Crossfire", "Forever".
Ma Yunxiang, president of the Yiyang Internet Service Association, feels that "the resurgence of Internet cafes in recent years is largely due to the new population brought by "Fearless Contract" (officially launched in 2023) and "Operation Delta" (officially launched in 2024). In Internet cafes, these two games, plus "League of Legends", can account for more than 80%."
According to statistics from Shunwang Technology, FPS games have accounted for more than 50% of popular games in Internet cafes for many years.
As mentioned before,
FPS games have high requirements for computer configuration. Good hardware can widen the gap and drive people to Internet cafes. They are born to be the saviors of Internet cafes.
But games are not the only reason for this round of Internet cafe revival.
The popularity of "PUBG" can only be said to have continued "one second" for the industry. In fact, from 2016 to 2023, the overall trend of the industry is still to go down the slide, and the number of Internet cafes has dropped sharply from 152,000 to 77,000, which is close to half.
But in this round of Internet cafe renaissance cycle, the number of people opening Internet cafes has suddenly increased. The word in industry reports is
large-scale growth.
In 2024, more than 300 new Internet cafes will be opened in Hangzhou alone, with new Internet cafes opening almost every day. According to information provided by veteran drivers, Changsha is also at the same rate this year.
The "big time" moment in Internet cafes is earlier than in movie theaters.
In fact, starting from 2023, more and more people have discovered that Internet cafes are a good business.
More than one veteran driver told me that the owners of newly opened Internet cafes that I came into contact with were originally from other industries, such as civil engineering, construction, and hotels.
“If I can’t continue my old business, I’ll go out and invest in Internet cafes.”
Wait a minute, switching from a hotel to an Internet cafe is somewhat reasonable. After all, many e-sports hotels were opened in the past few years, but switching from civil engineering to an Internet cafe is a bit too big a step!
After taking a closer look, I found that this business is indeed fascinating.
First of all, once this business is started, you can hear the sound of money every day, which is a
strong cash flow, and I feel very comfortable.
The most important thing is that in many businesses nowadays, if you fail to do G well, the initial investment will be in vain.
The investment in Internet cafes is relatively valuable.
An operations manager of a chain of high-end Internet cafes in Guangdong Province told Mr. Baifeng, "If you open a restaurant with 2 million yuan, the business will not be good, and the equipment will be worthless if you sell it second-hand. However, the Internet cafe machines have residual value, and you won't lose much. You may lose some operating expenses every month. We have also talked with other foreign trade, factory, and restaurant owners, and they all have the same view."
Don’t underestimate the residual value of Internet cafe machines.
Around 2022, when opening an Internet cafe, the payback period is usually 2 years, and the investment is on the order of 1-2 million. The investment consists of venue rent, decoration, machine costs, water, electricity and broadband costs, labor costs, etc. Among them, the machine cost is the bulk, usually accounting for 35-50% of the total cost.
There is also some credit behind this from AI...
@ Uncle Zhai’s Digital World believes that,
With the assistance of AI, Internet cafes have entered a super cycle.
“In the past, Internet cafes defaulted to two years to pay back the capital. If you can’t pay back the capital, you basically don’t need to do it, because you will definitely change the configuration in about two years to stay competitive. If you can’t pay back the capital in two years, you will have no capital for expansion, and you may even have to invest again as soon as you make a little money.”
"Manufacturers such as NVIDIA are now fully engaged in TO B business. On the consumer side, a high-end graphics card can be used as a flagship for a longer time, so for Internet cafes, the cycle of making money has been lengthened."
At the same time, I believe everyone has noticed that AI has driven hardware prices to rise crazily. If you believe that this momentum can continue, then buying hardware now is
a kind of financial management.
It is said that in business, confidence is gold. Everyone rushed in with "gold" in mind, and the number of Internet cafes skyrocketed.
Okay, seeing this, someone may have something to say.
It’s right to pay attention to the bad reviews. I got the new wealth password. I will go to consult on how to open an Internet cafe tomorrow.
I said stop and read the article!
There are more and more people entering the game. If you want to win the competition, you have to find ways to upgrade and be better than others in order to attract customers.
Behind every service in an Internet cafe, money is burning.
The simplest operation, hardware upgrade, these are all standard products.
Brother Xiao Ma, president of the Yiyang Internet Service Association, told the reviewer, "In the past, when opening an Internet cafe, a set of peripherals only cost a few hundred yuan, and a gaming chair cost more than a thousand yuan. Not anymore. Nowadays, a gaming chair is a minor item. It only costs 1,000 yuan. It is not as expensive as a keyboard."
The same is true for supply chain companies. Jason from ViewSonic Technology (China) Co., Ltd. mentioned that there were originally few Internet cafes from outside the Nanjing area. In the past few years, many Internet cafes used 2K240HZ monitors. As more people opened Internet cafes, "They began to come to us for large-scale procurement. First, they upgraded to 2K320HZ in a centralized manner. At the end of last year, they upgraded to 2K360HZ OLED in batches." Because the competition is fierce, everyone is driven by their opponents to move forward.”
In addition to hardware upgrades, you can now even have a seafood buffet in an Internet cafe.
The fare for taking a taxi can also be reimbursed...
There are also tea packages and free Internet access...
The most important thing for Internet cafes is attendance. After all, the asset is there. One more person will make more money, and if it is idle, it will be a loss. Nowadays, most Internet cafes have launched a "breakfast package", which corresponds to the all-night package of the year.
After the improvement of overall services, college students are also very happy to go to Internet cafes to spend money. Some people say that
they have entered the era of getting up early.
Only early tickets are included in the group. When other players stayed up late and their status declined, I got up early to maximize my status, and it was easy to get higher scores.
Originally, you couldn't go to bed early and get up early because although doing so was healthy, there was no record of it. But now getting up early is the best motivation.
In addition to making efforts to differentiate services, some Internet cafes choose to embrace e-sports culture.
Chengdu is the city mentioned the most by practitioners this time.
Almost everyone unanimously believes that Chengdu is the place with the best network service ecology/custom in China, which is undisputed, followed by Changsha and Wuhan.
The core of ordinary Internet cafes is to buy the right to use machines to earn Internet fees, but Chengdu was the first to emerge, making money through e-sports culture.
This type of Internet cafe looks very "wasteful", often covering an area of nearly 1,000 square meters, but containing no more than a hundred machines.
Although it looks like an Internet cafe on weekdays, on game days, it switches directly to an event venue.
Venue design and lighting equipment are all done for competitions. Cooperating with manufacturers and undertaking events and brand projects are the core of the revenue of this type of Internet cafe. Collecting Internet fees is to supplement household income.
In this round of Internet cafes, things like buffets and showers should be the most widely spread because they are too contrasting. But after understanding the whole thing, what makes the bad reviewers most interesting is that the current Internet service ecosystem is far richer than we imagined. Our e-sports culture is really ready to go.
Under such a trend, it is inevitable that
opening an Internet cafe will hurt your wallet more and more.
In the past few years, if you invested 1 million or 2 million, you could open a good Internet cafe, and the payback period would be 1 to 2 years.
Now this investment has almost risen to 3 million or 4 million. To build a high-end e-sports venue, the investment will be even higher. Naturally, it is almost impossible to think about the return of the capital in two years. Many of the return periods have reached more than two and a half years.
More directly, when the costs of decoration, peripherals, etc. are taken into account, the average cost per unit has increased from 20,000 units in previous years to 40,000 to 50,000 units.
In newly opened Internet cafes, the proportion of private rooms almost universally exceeds 50%.
But what about the Internet fee?
Yes
It has gone up, but not much.
Take Hangzhou and Nanjing as examples. Generally speaking, the hall price is about 10 yuan/hour, the private room is about 20 yuan/hour, and the overnight price is 20-50 yuan.
The price will be higher for a head Internet cafe with a special configuration. The hall price ranges from 15-20 yuan/hour, the private room price ranges from 20-30 yuan/hour, and the night price ranges from 50-130 yuan.
Because there are a large number of recharge discounts for new and old members, such as new members recharging 29.9 yuan for 100 and old members recharging 300 yuan for 650, the actual Internet fee will be lower than the listed price.
Because Internet cafes pay attention to attendance, new Internet cafes often give them a few days of free access, or give 9.9 generations a 100-yuan Internet fee package. This has also led to a lot of free prostitutes who have no loyalty to Internet cafes and only use free ones. Anyway, there are many new Internet cafes, so after using this one, they will go to the next one.
So, although the industry is currently in full swing and there are more and more relevant reports, in the chats of experienced drivers,
what I feel most is caution.
New entrants in the industry spend a lot of money on decoration and equipment, but veterans who are really in this industry try their best to reduce costs.
"Now use the old store's hardware to open a new store instead of buying new ones. The new ones are too expensive and I can't buy them."
"My Internet cafes are all old-fashioned renovations. If others can't run the shops, I will take over them at a low cost and revitalize them."
Newcomers to the industry are all interested in the residual value of hardware, but experienced drivers feel the existence of risks.
"Because of the development of AI and cloud, the value of graphics cards and memory has now reached an unprecedented and unprecedented level. From an investment perspective, I used to buy a 5070 for 4,500 yuan. I can predict that the residual value of the graphics card will be between 3,000 and 3,500 in two years, but when it has been priced at a premium of 6,000 or even 7,000, I can no longer predict how much it will be in two years."
When will the danger come?
The bad reviewers can’t say it well. An old driver said this: “Take my city as an example. The average number of people accessing the Internet every day is less than 5,000. So when the number of terminals exceeds 10,000, the market is already very scary.” In the city where this old driver is located, the current number of terminals is around 8,000.
On social media, a design company that decorates an Internet cafe posted a post exposing that the Internet cafe owner ran away. This Internet cafe had invested more than 1 million in the early stage. However, due to the skyrocketing cost of hardware, the increase in the cost of a single machine, and the interest on renting and purchasing, Party A’s capital chain was broken.
What will be the hottest industry in 2026?
The answer may actually be an Internet cafe.
However, for different people, the revival of Internet cafes has different meanings.
For young people, Internet cafe services are getting better and better, and they are definitely enjoying it. Internet cafes are constantly evolving and will definitely get better and better. In five years, their form may be unimaginable to us now.
But for those who are involved in it, this may be a huge whirlpool. Both old people and newcomers in the industry are swept into it, making it difficult to escape.
A good future is still expected, and survival of the fittest means living in the present.
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