The sales number of Smart TV in China was 5,300,600 units in Q1. Smart TV maker may have to fight with the foreign enemies after this.

Smart TV is gradually becoming hot in China from last year, because its price is gradually becoming affordable.

According to the report by Eguan, the sales number of Smart TV in China was  5,300,600 units in Q1. The sales number of whole flat-panel TV was about 12,780,000, so it means the sales percentage of Smart TV was 41.5% in Q1.

And the next graph is the market share of Smart TV by each maker in Q1.

Skyworth  16.9%
TCL   16.2%
Hisense   15.8%
KONKA   15.5%
ChangHong   13.3%
Samsung   6.1%
SHARP   5.6%
Haier   4.2%

Other   6.4%


There is not the specific maker that has enormous power in Chinese Smart TV industry, and 5 companies stand on the top group now. As the second group, there are the foreign companies such as Samsung and SHARP.

But anyway, it can be said that the Smart TV market in China is still the status of rival warlords.


By the way, this report said that the Smart TV market has continued growing, but what's going to happen to this market now? I think that there are two threats for their growth.

1. Chromecast
2. STB

As you know, Google recently released the Chromecast, and its price is 35 USD.  At this time, I don't know whether Google will provide it to Chinese market or not, but I think there is some impact even if they will not provide it to China.

And recently, Xiaomi provides their own STB, and Alibaba also have a plan to provide their STB in the near future. Both prices are also about 50 to 65 USD.

These two threats can implement with cheap flat-panel TV, if its TV has the HDMI terminal. It means that this combination can materialize the same function with Smart TV, and furthermore this combination is basically cheaper than Smart TV.

So I think that Smart TV makers have to prepare for the fight with the "foreign enemies".


Source => Eguan

Tencent dominates more than 65% of mobile instant messenger market in China. The king of IM tool "QQ" is still keeping the top position.

As I explained many times, "Instant Messenger (Chat)" is the most popular internet service in China. According to the recent report by CNNIC, the utilization of chat tool is 84.2% in China, and the hottest chat tool "WeChat" is expected to have more than 500 million users soon.

And it is the most popular for mobile users, and CNNIC said that the utilization of mobile instant messenger is 85.7% as of the end of June.
In a situation like that, Eguan published the market share of mobile instant messenger service in China as follows.

QQ (Tencent)                    38.07%
WeChat (Tencent)           27.97%
Feixin (China Mobile)     18.37%
Yiliao (China Telecom)     4.98%
MSN (Microsoft China)    3.80%
Wangwang (Taobao)         2.38%
Miliao (Xiaomi)                   1.43%

Other     3.00%




The above picture is the market share of the total registered number of mobile instant messenger users.

Recently, WeChat has been the hottest topic in the news related to internet services in China, but the king of IM tool "QQ" is still keeping the top position in this market. As I said above, WeChat is expected to have more than 500 million users soon, but it is said that QQ already has more than 700 million users totally, and a most of QQ users are using mobile devices.


The next picture is the market share of its active users.

QQ (Tencent)                     42.54%
WeChat (Tencent)            23.38%
Feixin (China Mobile)      17.65%
Yiliao (China Telecom)      6.76%
Wangwang (Taobao)         3.07%
MSN (Microsoft China)     2.53%
Miliao (Xiaomi)                   1.08%

Other     2.99%




There are not so much differences with the market share of total users in the ranking, but there is an interesting result.

The difference in the market share between QQ and WeChat is more than the difference of total users. What was this?

Actually, WeChat is rapidly increasing their "registered" users, but I also feel that a lot of people are still usually using QQ more than WeChat. Especially, in the business scene, in the provincial city, the user of the earlier 80's or 70's and so forth.

So I think that these factors are may be reflected as a result.

Anyway, it's a surprising thing that Tencent (QQ + WeChat) is dominating more than 65% of this market.


Well, mobile internet is the hottest topic and the hottest industry in China now, and furthermore mobile instant messenger is one of the hottest among them. We have to continue watching the trend of this as before.


Source => Eguan

The collaboration of Chat and Career is ongoing in China. China Telecom will collaborate with Netease, and Guangdong China Unicom will collaborate with WeChat.

In April, it was said that China Telecom will will change the name of their own chat app, and they will collaborate with Netease to promote it again.

It will be likely to materialize in the beginning of August.

Its name is "易信 (Easy Chat or Yixin)".
This app will be published in the beginning of August, and it is said that this is the status of final test.

According to the news, this app have the difference with WeChat, this app can send the message who doesn't have the account of this app. In other words, it means that this app can send the message to the SMS.


On the other hand, Guangdong China Unicom collaborates with WeChat, and they already published special SIM card that is named "WeChat Wo".

According to the news, this SIM card provides a lot of special favor to WeChat users. This SIM card is a regional service at this time. But if it will be succeeded, they will provide it to the whole China.


In March, it was said that WeChat will be changed to the paid service, and some careers wanted to charge the special fee to the WeChat users. Did the careers already change their strategy? Will their policy change to the cooperation with these OTT services? And, how China Mobile will take action?

We have to keep watching this trend as before.


Source => Techweb, 36kr

CNNIC Report : Social media services in China was not so much high rate growth this time.

Last time, I introduced the summary of Chinese internet users situation as of June 2013, but I would like to introduce the usage situation of each internet service this time.

At first, this graph is the usage situation of all internet users by each service.

There isn't a huge change as a whole, but "Group Buying (21.2%)", "Travel Booking (18.7%)" and "Online News (17.5%)" got the high increase rate.

Social media services (Instant Messenger, Weibo and SNS) was not so much high rate increase, but Instant Messenger will be likely to reach 500 million users soon.


Next graph is the usage situation of mobile internet users by each service.

Instant messenger still keep the top position, and its utilization rate was 85.7%. Online news also got the high rate increase by the mobile internet users, but its largest mobile client "Sohu" got 100 million times downloads as of April.

Mobile payment and mobile shopping also got the high rate increase compared to other services, but Weibo and WeChat also started their own both services, so its growth will be expected to accelerate without a break.


Anyway, as far as reading this report, the power of mobile internet looks like continue for a while in China, and it looks like still 'Blue Ocean'.

Let's keep watching the trend or new movement in this market as before.


Source => CNNIC

The latest CNNIC report said that internet users in China were 561 million people, and its mobile users were 426 million people as of Jun 2013.

CNNIC provides a report that is written about the summary of internet user in China by every half year, but today they published the latest its report.

This report said that the number of whole internet users in China was 590.56 million people as of Jun 2013, and it increased 26.56 million people compared to the end of 2012.

And the diffusion rate of internet in China was 44.1%, and its rate increased 2.1% compared to the end of 2012.


The next graph is written about the mobile internet users in China.

This report said that the number of mobile internet users in China was 463.76 million people as of Jun 2013, and its number increased 43.79 million people compared to the end of 2012.

The increase of mobile internet users was very remarkable, but the next graph proved it more clearly.

This graph explained the increase rate of new internet users in this term, but 70% of new users use the mobile devices to access internet. On the other hand, the users who use desktop PC were 35.4%, and the users who use laptop PC were 12.7%.


And next is the graph that was divided the urban areas and farming areas, but we can find an interesting result.

There isn't much difference in the utilization rate of mobile devices, but the utilization of desktop and laptop PC was very low in the farming areas. I think this reason may be that the internet environment in the farming areas is not enough yet, but on the other hand, each mobile career provided the 3G connection environment every area in China.


And the next graph is the ratio of internet users by age.

As same as the end of 2012, main users were from 10 to 39 age, but it accounted for 78.8% of whole internet users.


Next graph is the average time of connecting to the internet.

Internet users averagely connected to the internet 21.7 hours per a week, and it increased 1.2 hours compared to the end of 2012.


Well, I explained the summary of this report today, but I will explain the circumstance of each internet service in the next time.


Source => CNNIC

The battle of WeChat and Weibo in Social Commerce will be heating up moreover from now on.

Social media and Ecommerce are the hottest market in China, and according to the report by CNNIC, both users increased over 20% compared to the previous year.

And from the late last year, the fusion of social media and Ecommerce were gradually embodied, Sina Weibo actually started to provide the "Weibo Wallet", and they sold Xiaomi mobile on their platform.

Sina Weibo was invested by Alibaba at this April, but the first their collaboration was appeared at this time. It's called "Tuan Mai", and this is the site that the limited item or special priced item are being sold.

Now the limitation item or special priced items are sold one item per a day, but Sina Weibo wish to sell multiple those items on there in the future. But this is only the prologue of their collaboration, and it is said that the custom version of Weibo for Taobao will be released this month or next month.

On the other hand, WeChat also started to accelerate the fusion of WeChat and Ecommerce. As I explained before, WeChat will be added the linkage function with Ecommerce, and they will also formally provide the mobile payment function in the next version of it.

And though it's provide the third party vendor, the new linkage tool of WeChat and Ecommerce was also published now.

This tool is named "V Mall", and it can the user make easier to open their shops and sell the items on WeChat.

Tencent already has their own EC platform "QQ Wanggou", and also has their own payment system "Tenpay". And they already were providing them to their QQ Weibo from the past. So it's no doubt that they will be sure to accelerate this area from now on.

Social commerce is unfailingly the point getter for Weibo and WeChat. So we have to keep watching their actions in this market, and at the same time, we also have to keep the attention whether the other influencer will raise their head or not.

* I'm personally paying attention to the action of Baidu...

Source => ChinaByte, Ifeng net

A report said that half of iOS developers in China already have gotten more than 1,300 USD salary.

The apple engineer forum "CocoaChina" published a factual investigation about iOS developers in China. And this report said that half of iOS developers in China already have gotten more than 1,300 USD (= 8,000 RMB) salary.

The total distribution of their salary is as follows:

Less than 480 USD      10%

481 to 810 USD            17%

811 to 1,300 USD        25%

1,301 to 1,620 USD    17%

1,621 to 2,430 USD    19%

2,431 to 4,050 USD      8%

More than 4,051 USD   4%

I think that 1,300 USD (= 8,000 RMB) is a division point in this report, because both range each have about 50% share. 

And the following graph is a breakdown of the above graph, and this graph divided developers into 4 types ( Corporate games developer, Personal games developer, Corporate apps developer and Personal apps developer).

The both types of corporate developers who are Getting less than 480 USD salary are less than the total average. And about the corporate developers, the percentage of who are getting more than 1,300 USD salary are more than the total average (Corporate apps developer - 48%  ; Corporate games developer - 59%).

According to the news, the average salary in the urban areas of China is about 631.7 USD in 2012, and this was 11.9% increased compared to 2011.

There is not a time series data in this report, but I think that the salary of iOS developers is increasing more rapidly than the average. In China, Android is a main device as a using device, but a lot of companies have outsourced developing iOS apps or games to China. So the needs of iOS developers are also increasing day by day in China.

We have to pay close attention to the future trends of this.

Source => CocoaChina

The rule of WeChat official account will be changed. Tencent emphasized that WeChat is not a marketing tool again.

As I explained last time, Tencent held a partner conference on July 3. And I explained that oversea users of WeChat already exceeded 70 million people. And today, I would like to explain another important thing related WeChat.

At that conference, there was a session related to official accounts of WeChat, they announced that changing the rule of WeChat official accounts.

I explained before that the display method of official accounts will be changed in the next version of WeChat. And in addition to this, they announced that official accounts will be categorized two types as follows.

1. 订阅号 (Subscription accounts)
2. 服务号 (Service accounts)

According to their explanation, "Subscription accounts" can post one message in a day, but its message is not displayed in the top page of WeChat as I explained before. And "Service accounts" can post only one message in a month, but its message is still displayed in the top page of WeChat as same as the current version.

Now it's not clear that the existing official accounts will be categorized which type. But some resource said that the official accounts of media (News and so forth) will be categorized as a "Subscription accounts", and other official accounts will be categorized as a "Service accounts"...

It's not clear that this definition of categorization is true or not at this time, but anyhow, the effect of marketing on WeChat will become much less than now.


VP of WeChat said "WeChat is not a marketing tool, it's like a Social CRM tool" before, but it can be said that this message is gradually embodied. So we have to prepare the action for this trend, and we have to reconsider social marketing method in China.


Source => Tech QQ, Ifeng Net

WeChat oversea users already exceeded 70 million people. They assigned Lionel Messi as a new spokesman to accelerate overseas market even more than now.

As I explained before, Tencent has a partner conference today. And they announced two important things related WeChat, so I would like to explain one of them at this time.

Oversea users of WeChat exceeded 40 million people in April, and they exceeded 50 million people in May. And today, Tencent announced oversea users of WeChat already exceeded 70 million people now.

And for expanding more oversea users, they also announced that assigned Lionel Messi as a new spokesman for WeChat.

They already prepared the special page on wechat.com, and also already published the TV commercial.


They also published its Spanish, Turkish and Bahasa Indonesia version, and they also announced that this TV CM started to provide to 15 countries from today.

Of course his WeChat account is also available now.

Their rival "LINE" already has over 100 million oversea users, and it was already welcomed in over 230 countries. So we have to keep watching this war situation for the development from now on.


Source => Tech QQ, WeChat Official Page

WeChat and Weibo both are mainly accessed from mobile devices.

A data research company "DRATIO" published a research report of social media in China.

This report is written about the comparison of Sina Weibo and WeChat user, and there are some interesting trend. So I will explain the summary of this report.


1. Do you use Weibo or WeChat or both?

Weibo only     20.6%

WeChat only  22.4%

Both   57.0%







The over half of users use both services, but there is an interesting trend by the below picture that was categorized by age.

Only using Weibo users has turned out that the older ages have the higher rate, but I think that old users maybe use QQ as a communication tool instead of WeChat.


2. In the recent one month, how often did you use each service?

The highest utilization rate of WeChat is over 4 times in a day, and the highest utilization rate of Weibo is 3 to 4 times in a week.


3. How many hours do you averagely use each service in a day?

Less than 30 minutes is the highest rate of Weibo user's using hours, and 30 to 60 minutes is the highest rate of WeChat user's using hours.

The users who are using WeChat more than 4 hours exist 13.4%, so it seems that the using time of WeChat is relatively longer than using Weibo.


4. Which devices do you usually use for each service?

Mobile access is the most popular method of usage of both services, but this is a natural thing. Because as I explained before, mobile device already became the top of all method connecting to the internet in China. Furthermore, Tencent defines WeChat as a mobile communication tool, and Sina said that their more than 60% users have used mobile devices to access Sina Weibo.


5. Where do you usually use each service?

#1   at home
#2   at office
#3   at transportation facilities
#4   at public place
#5   at outside
#6   at lodgings
#7   at classroom
#8   other




As a result, more than 80% users have used each service at home. And it is a characteristic thing that using each service 'at office' is more than 'at transportation facilities'.


6. Which feature do you usually use on each service?

Though it's a natural thing, 82.5% of WeChat users usually use chat feature on it. And the characteristic thing is that very few users use the social feature of WeChat compared to Weibo. I think this is one of the most important fact when we would like to utilize each service for our business.


For capturing Chinese social media market, it is a very important thing that compares Weibo and WeChat, and understanding deeply each property. So I would like to continue introducing that point of view in future too.


Source => DRATIO