The alternation of generations is certainly ongoing. The latest report by CNNIC said Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time.

Last time, I reported the summary of report by CNNIC, and I explained that the latest number of internet users and mobile internet users in China. And today, I would like to introduce the situation by each internet service in China.

The first picture is written about the number of users and the usage rate by each internet services in China.

Instant messenger still kept the pole position, and its user number was 532.15 million people, and its growth rate is 13.8% increasing compared with the previous year. And the travel booking service and the group buying service scored more than 60% growth rate, so it can be said that their service achieved rapid growth compared with the previous year.

But the most symbolic result is the decline of Weibo. Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time. As I explained before, the growth of Weibo was slowing down from the last half of 2011. And its active users were also slowly decreasing. But this time, its fact was verified by this report again.

From the last year, WeChat and similar service was rapidly increasing users, and Weibo had been absolutely affected. Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

But I think its monetization also had a one of the negative impact for their users. Because their collaboration brought a lot of advertize posting on their platform, so it seem that the quite a lot users decided to stop using their platform.

To keep balance of the monetization and the user satisfaction will be most important thing for Sina Weibo, I think.


And the next graph is the situation by each mobile internet services.

The service that achieved more than 10% growth are as follows: Mobile Online Video, Mobile Online Game, Mobile Online Payment， Mobile Online Banking， Mobile Group Buying

'Weibo' also decreased the usage rate in mobile internet area, and it decreased 8.9% compared with the previous year. And 'Mobile SNS' also decreased the usage rate, and it decreased 11.1% compared with previous year.


I wonder whether WeChat or similar IM services can keep their power or not, otherwise other new service may be appeared.

I guess that Chinese social media industry will be occured the diastrophism in 2014...


Source => The report by CNNIC

In China, the number of internet users were 618 million people as of the end of 2013. And the mobile internet users broke the 500 million people.

CNNIC(China Internet Network Information Center) recently published the latest report that is written about the summary of internet user in China.

According to this report, the number of internet users in China were 617.58 million people as of the end of 2013.

Compared to the previous year, the number of internet users increased about 50 million people, and the diffusion rate of internet was 45.8% in the end of 2013.

The number of internet users already exceeded 600 million, but the diffusion rate of it was less than 50%, so it may be still said that China is the huge market.


The next graph is the number of mobile internet users in China.

According to this graph, the number of mobile internet users already exceeded 500 million people as of the end of 2013.

That number increased 80 million compared with the previous year, and the rate of mobile internet user reached 81.0%. Of course that 81.0% is the result of multiple responses, so it doesn't mean that the rate of PC internet users are 19.0%.

But it's certain that the mobile internet users are rapidly increasing, and the next graph also proved its fact.

According to this graph, 73.3% of the new internet users access to the internet by mobile devices. And the rate of desktop PC was 28.7%, and the rate of laptop PC was 16.9%. So it means about 40 to 50% of the new internet users use only the mobile devices to access to the internet.

I think that this result was brought by the effort of enriching the 3G or WiFi environment, but this report also pointed the similar reason. It is said that 2014 is the first year of 4G, and all of the mobile career in China will formally start to provide the 4G services. So I think that this tendency still continue in this year, and this tendency may accelerate more than now.


And the next graph is also interesting. This graph is the result that asked to the non-internet user why they don't use it.

The most common response was that they don't know how to use PC, devices or network(58.1%). The answer of 'without need to access to the internet' was only 10.5%, so it can be said that if the more easy device will be inexpensively appeared in future, the number of internet user will increase rapidly more than now.


And the last graph is the usage rate of internet by each province in China.

The largest usage rate of internet was Beijing, and its number was 75.2%. And the next was Shanghai, and the 3rd position was Guangdong, so it can be said that the usage rate in urban area was still high.

But there is still a lot of the province that the internet usage rate was less than 50%, and in addition that number is more than 30 million people. (For example, that is Hebei, Shandong, Henan and so forth.) So I think that there is the high value of consideration that will target to provide the related product or service to such area. Because China is wide and huge.


Well I explained the summary of this report, but this article was already too long :) So I would like to explain about the usage rate of each internet service in China next time.


Source => The report by CNNIC

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

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

Baidu report said that about each 70% users use Win XP and IE in China.

According to the recent report by Baidu statistics, IE8 is the most used web browser in China as of the end of April.

IE8.0            38.05%
IE6.0            17.62%
Chrome        17.07%
IE9.0            10.41%
Sogou             6.27%
IE7.0              1.73%
Qihoo 360    1.41%
Maxthon       1.25%
Firefox          1.20%






The period covered by this report is three months that is from February 2013 to April.

As mentioned above, IE8 has 38.05% market share, and it is the most used web browser in China. But the worthy of special mentions are following two things.

- IE6 is still used by 17.62% users in China.
The data by "IE6 countdown" also said that 24.0% user still use IE6 in China. About the other country, the average utilization of IE6 is less than 2%, so it can be said that China is the special circumstances of web browser.

- Chrome is rapidly growing in this three months.
Chrome had 9.06% market share in the last three months. Hence it follows that Chrome got the almost double market share compared to the previous three months.



The next picture is the market share of the PC OS in China as of the end of April.

Windows XP        70.73%

Windows 7             25.1%

Windows Vista      0.59%

Mac OS                 0.42%

Windows 2003        0.3%

Other                     2.85%




The period covered by this report is also from February 2013 to April.

Over 70% users use Windows XP in China, and other 25% users use Windows 7. Hence it follows that they totally have over 95% market share in China.

The formal support from Microsoft of Windows XP will end in next April, but Qihoo 360 announced to continue support of Windows XP instead of MS after next April.


It is the something worth seeing whether Chinese XP users will upgrade or replace their OS to other OS or not.

Anyway at this time, I think that web service provider or app developer who wants to enter Chinese market have to consider the above results.


Source => Baidu statistics

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking". WeChat was ranked in 3rd position.

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking" as of April 2013.

                                      Share         Click Rate
#1  Qzone                   15.59%        30.19%

#2  Sina Weibo           14.09%        24.05%

#3  WeChat                 12.82%          0.02%

#4  Renren                     7.80%          2.03%

#5  Tencent Weibo       7.11%       13.68%

........










Jiathis added WeChat as the object of ranking from this time, but WeChat was ranked in the 3rd place for the first time.


This represents the recent power of Wechat, but it has something in our mind that their click rate is much lower than Qzone or Sina Weibo.

The user number of WeChat will be shortly over 400 million people, and a lot of companies already use WeChat as a marketing tool. So this result maybe makes the marketing people nervous, but it's important that we will also continue to watch the trend of this after next month.


Source => Jiathis

In 2012, Tablet PC shipments were 10.31 million in China. What kind of situation is Surface Pro that started to sell in China last month?

Eguan published the new report that is written about the sales status of Tablet PC in China as follows.

According to this report, Tablet PC shipments were 3,197,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2012 in China, and it increased 35.2% compared to the last year. And their shipments were 10.31 million units in throughout the year for 2012, and it increased 60.5% compared to 2011.

According to the report by IDC, Tablet PC shipments of worldwide were 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, so it can be said that the share of shipments in China was about 6.1% of the worldwide.

But Eguan said that 2013 will become the year of explosive growth for Tablet PC. Actually, many Android Tablet was already shipped to the market in China, and iPad is also welcomed as the status from many people.

And Microsoft also started to sell "Surface Pro" in China from last month.

But according to the sources, the selling status of Surface Pro is not so good. A staff of GOME said that its sales numbers are one-tenth of iPad.
I think this main reason is the price of it. The price of Surface Pro is 6588 RMB, and it is much expensive than iPad(= 3688 RMB).

We have to continue watching the market status of Tablet PC in China, and we also have to watch the strategy of Microsoft for Surface Pro in the future.


Source => Eguan, Wangyi Finance

The biggest Chinese SNS "Renren" have 280 million registered users. And they started to provide own chat tool "Tongxueshuo".

Renren is the one of biggest SNS provider in China, and they got the high popularity in the recent research as I introduced before. And according to a report, Renren have 280 million registered users as of the end of March.

User distribution map of area in China

East China : 31%

(Shanghai, Jiangsi, Zhejiang...)

South China : 17%

(Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi...)

North China : 15%

(Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin...)

Middle China : 12%

(Henan, Hubei, Hunan...)

Southwest China : 9%

(Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou...)

Northwest China : 7%

(Shaanxi, Qinghai, Gansu...)

And they have 110 million PC active users and 26 million mobile active users.

The ratio of male to female - 56% : 44%

User distribution by age:

90's or later     45%

80's                    35%

70's or earlier  20%

Next is the utilization rate by each mobile devices.

Android have 55.6% share, and they won the first place. But it seems that this share does not include access by feature phone, and it's not counted access to WAP page.

The next picture is the list of corporate accounts in Renren.

According to this report, there are 150,000 corporate accounts in Renren, and the user checks the 3 corporate pages daily on average.

The next picture is the summary of posting in a day.

The summary of daily post:

[Tweet]

From PC - 15.8 million times

From Mobile - 13.2 million times

[Picture]

From PC - 12.3 million times

From Mobile - 5.2 million times

[Diary]

From PC - 0.78 million times

From Mobile - 0.47 million times

The last picture is the data of tweet with location information.

According to this report, there are 1.7 million posts that include the location information daily in Renren, and its cumulative number is over 700 million posts.

Well, they recently started to provide the their own chat tools "Tongxueshuo".

 

It seems that this chat tool focuses to have the communication in the same university, and this user has to register their college before they start to use this.

* And they didn't support that users register the foreign college yet.

I would like to keep the attentions about the trend of Chinese SNS as same as WeChat or Weibo as ever.

Source => Sina Weibo, CNII

[Graph] The summary of the 3G market in China. 3G user in China was 280 million people in the first quarter.

All of 3 big career in China published their achievement of the first quarter, so I would like to introduce the current status of 3G users in China.

According to their report, the total number of mobile users in China was 1.145 billion people in the first quarter, and the number of 3G users in China was 0.28 billion people in the first quarter.

The following picture is the market share of total user number.

China Mobile has totally 726.31 users, so they dominate 63.34% of the Chinese mobile market. But compared to the last July, their market share decreased 1.87%.

That's one of the reason is related to the increase of the 3G user ratio. The 3G user ratio in the last July was 16.8%, but its ratio was up to 24.5% in the first quarter. The market share of 3G user is more competitive than the market share of total user number as follows.

In China, China Mobile already started LTE test on some places. Will it be happen something change in the era of LTE? We have to keep watching the trend as ever.


Source => CNII, TechWeb-1, TechWeb-2

Two-thirds people login to a social media everyday in China, but there are only 3% people who are truly in difficulties that if they can't use any social media.

Chinese portal site "Sootoo" provided a interesting report as follows.

Q1. How often do you login to a social media service?

Several times a day     : 51.95%
        Once a day             : 15.06%
Several times a week  : 20.26%
       Once a week           : 3.90%
Less than once a week: 8.83%





This report said that about two-thirds people in China login to an any social media everyday. According to the latest report by CNNIC, many people use a any social media in China. So it can be said that this report followed up the credibility.


Q2. How long times use a social media in a day?

Less than one hour : 39.74%

1 to 2 hours: 40.00%

2 to 4 hours: 17.92%

More than 4 hours : 2.34%





This report said that almost 80% people use a social media less than 2 hours in a day.


Q3. Which social media services do you usually use?

Qzone  : 80.86%
Sina Weibo :  78.72%
Renren : 71.43%
Tencent Weibo :  60.45%
WeChat :  51.83%
Pengyou : 11.45%
Douban :  10.04%
Facebook :  5.45%
Kaixin :  4.96%
Other :  4.05%



This result is very interesting. I thought that the ranking of WeChat is higher than Tencent Weibo, but the result was different at this time.
And other unexpected thing is that the utilization rate of Renren was higher than my expect. Actually, Renren is the biggest SNS provider in China, but the interests of Chinese people is moving from SNS to Weibo or WeChat in few years. So its result is unexpected, and the big difference of RenRen and Kaixin's utilization rate was also unexpected.


4. Which purpose do you use a social media?

To contact with friends : 74.03%
To watch the video or post : 72.99%
To kill time :  63.12%
For hobby :  59.22%
To watch the hot topic :  54.55%
To post own mind :  45.06%
To expand personal connections :  38.70%
To enjoy games :  22.75%
To enjoy apps : 21.56%
To send a gift :  20.38%
For business :  15.58%
To join a event :  10.90%
Other :  0.95%

The answer of enjoying games or apps was lower than my expect. Sina Weibo have provided many games on their platform for a long time, and WeChat also have a plan to provide games on their platform as same as LINE...


Q5. Which devices do you usually use when you login a social media?

Mobile phone :  81.18%

PC :  69.35%

Tablet :  25.81%

Other :  11.83%





As I reported before, mobile devices is already the most popular method to access the internet in China. As a result, it follows that this fact also apply to in case of social media.


Q6. Why did you start using a social media?

Own thoughts :  23.65%
By the recommendation of friends : 26.35%
Many friend already use it :  45.95%
Can contact easily with friends :  43.92%
To expand personal connections :  8.11%
To get the information :  18.24%

Other :  4%


This result said that the almost half people started a social media by the reason related with friends.


Q7. If you weren't able to use a social media, how will you feel?

It's very inconvenient and unacceptable :  3%
Feeling not good, but acceptable : 51%
Feeling nothing at first, but feeling inconvenient not good later :  23%
Already not using it for a long time, so feeling nothing :  18%
Other :  5%

As mentioned in the introduction, two-thirds people use a social media everyday in China. But there are only 3% people who will be truly in trouble with not to use a social media. It's also an unexpected result.


Well, I'm very interested in this result, and furthermore I also would like to look the result in other countries :)


Source : Sootoo

Chinese mobile EC users will be estimated to increase to 353 million people in the end of 2015.

iiMedia recently published the summary report of mobile EC market in China.
According to this report, they estimated that the number of mobile EC user will increase to 352 million people in the end of 2015 in China.

In the end of 2012, the number of mobile EC user was 149 million people. And this was increasing 62.0% compared to 2011. And they estimate that the number of mobile EC users will become over 300 million people in the end of 2014 in China.


Next is a graph of the market scale from 2009 to 2015.

In 2009, this market scale was 790 million RMB(= 126.08 million USD). But this market was rapidly growing in a few years, this market scale became 47.86 billion RMB(= 7.64 billion USD) in 2012.
And they also estimate this market scale will be growing to 253.65 billion RMB(= 40.48 billion USD) in 2015.


Next is the market share of service provider in mobile EC.

The king of EC market in China, Taobao, have 62.7% market share in 2012. And next position is 360buy.com (now they already changed the name to "JD.com"), and they have 16.7% market share. And third position is the QQbuy that is provided by Tencent, and they have 4.5% market share.


Next is the market share by each mobile OS.

According to the report by CNNIC, the selling share of Android smartphone in China was 86.2% in 2012. Android smartphone is the most popular device in China, and it also have 62.5% share in this market.

And next position is iOS(iPhone/iPad), and they it have 37.7% market share.

Last is the usage graph by time zone.

The utilization rate start to increase after 19 o'clock, and it peak time is from 23 to 24 o'clock.


Mobile EC is the hottest market in Chinese mobile internet area, and Sina Weibo and other new faces also joined to this market. We also have to keep watching the movement in this market as before.


Source => Moobuu

CIC published "China Social Media Landscape 2013".

CIC published also "China Social Media Landscape 2012" last February, but its new version is available now!

This picture categorized Chinese social media service in 24 items, and in the inside circle, it is set the typical social media service in the worldwide. So this picture is much helpful to understand the summary of Chinese social media market.

This version was 4 new items were added. Those categories are "Mobile Social", "Photo Sharing", "Social TV" and "Social Search".
About "Mobile Social", WeChat and Wangxin(Taobao) are categorized in it. And about "Photo Sharing", Tuitu and Lomokr are categorized in it.



CIC also published the history from 2008 to 2012 of this picture as follows.

 

 


It's also fun to watch the change in Chinese social media market :)


Source => CIC