A Guide to Digital China

Mobile, Trends

Posted on May 30th, 2009

Written by DigitalChinaGuide

(17 votes, average: 3.82 out of 5)

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China’s Mobile Internet Update

This post was spurred by a question about the state of the mobile ad market in China.
The short answer is I couldn’t find any reliable, vendor independent statistics relating to total marketing spend on m0bile in China, nor any reliable data relating to % spend by mobile marketing activity. If you find some please forward them on.

I can however provide some topline mobile marketing indicators.

Top Line Mobile Marketing Indicators:

Mobile marketing and mobile consumption of digital content will surge
155 mln Mobile Internet users in 2008 - 22% of total mobile users*
165 mln 3G users predicted by 2010*
Chinese audiences consume more digital content on their mobiles per week than the Korean and Japanese

*Source: Phone Valley Media Scene 2009

Takeout: Mobile advertising in China will see some healthy growth this year with the 3G rollout.

China Mobile Market Vs US Mobile Market#

28% of Chinese own two or more mobile devices, compared with just 18% of Americans
Chinese access more services and activities on the mobile web, including email, news, games, local information and financial accounts. Americans and Chinese differ in the top services they use and the frequency of use. For Americans, the top three services on the mobile web are e-mail, texting and weather. For Chinese, they are news, texting and instant messaging (IM).
58% of Chinese mobile web users post Web 2.0 content via their mobile devices, compared with 41% of those in the US.
64% of Chinese mobile web users purchased premium mobile web content in the last year, compared with 36% of US mobile web users
Chinese mobile web users spend more than ¥1.2 billion ($182.6 million) each month on premium services, compared with $64.8 million in the US.
Chinese mobile web users spend a higher proportion of their monthly incomes on mobile data services (3.4%), compared to 1.2% in the US.

#Source: Netpop Pocket: Growing the Mobile Marketplace

Value in Services and Content for Mobile

Start thinking about the value in services and content rather than messages for mobile as this is where you will win your audience.

Mobile, Trends

Posted on May 23rd, 2009

Written by DigitalChinaGuide

(20 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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China Mobile Internet is Heating Up!

China’s 3G Rollout Fuelling a Globally Retracting Market.

The mobile space is going to heat up this year in China with the rollout of 3G services. According to Digitimes.com This rollout is actually the main motor fueling growth in an otherwise global market which showed 9% revenue contractions.

China Telecom Focus
China Telecom’s deployment of their 3G network resulted in the most CDMA base station shipments in over four years.1 This service provider will be a key player in the 3G space supporting the growth of China’s mobile internet. China Telecom will be providing some of the broadest coverage and fastest network access of the main 3G telcos and should prove popular with consumers who want mobile access to their some of their favourite internet services.

China’s Mobile Internet as Compliment not Replacement

Mobile is a great compliment to the Internet rather than a substitute and will be used alongside other more traditional access points, such as home/office and internet cafes. For example SMS is still currently the most dominant non-voice mobile service with 90% of them being P2P messages.2

Chinese Activities on Mobile Internet vs Internet

mobile_activites

China’s Leading Mobile Portals

mobile09

Sources
1 Press release, May 22; Meiling Chen, DIGITIMES [Friday 22 May 2009]
http://www.digitimes.com/

2 iResearch 2008.4

Breaking News

Posted on May 14th, 2009

Written by DigitalChinaGuide

(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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Sorry for the break …

Hi: Just a quick update to appologise for the lack of posts lately. I have started a new role at Starcom and have been quite busy however I will start posting again this weekend!!!

Thanks for your patience and support

cheers /tim

Chinese Web, Statistics

Posted on March 26th, 2009

Written by DigitalChinaGuide

(31 votes, average: 4.26 out of 5)

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Latest Report on Internet Development in China

I have just finished reading the latest report from CNNIC titled 23rd Statistical Report on the Internet Development in China [pdf].

Here’s a quick summary of the salient points as released by CNNIC.

Internet Penetration Rate in China Surpassed the Global Average Level for the First Time

According to the report, by the end of 2008, the Internet penetration rate of 22.6% in China had surpassed the global average level of 21.9% for the first time. Meanwhile, the amount of Internet users in China had reached 298 million, with 279 million broadband users. And the registration number of CN domain names reached 13.572 million. The three indexes continued to rank the first in the world.

Wireless & 3G in China

The report also predicts that, with the advent of the 3G age, wireless Internet will display a trend of explosive growth. The Internet is undergoing a change from entertainment applications to the age of value-added applications. The application rates of practical use such as online job hunting and online shopping grow to a large extent, the application rates of entertainment such as online music and online video display the trend of falling.

NOTE: 3G is still undergoing beta testing in various regions throughout China and 3G’s value propositions are still being explored for Chinese Audiences.

Mobile Internet Users Exceeded 100 Million, Explosive Growth Will Come

According to the report, as carriers paid more attention and the hardware cost of mobile phones kept falling, Internet users accessing the Internet via mobile phones in 2008 doubled, reaching 117 million.

NOTE: Mobile Internet users data must be viewed as an “unfiltered” figure as access is not defined [duration/activity/frequency etc].

China’s Online Population and Online Commercial Value Has Doubled

Size of Internet users in China has been close to 300 million, increasing by 41.9% from 2007
Internet penetration rate has reached 22.6%, slightly higher than the global average level (21.9%)
In the last 6 months, 90.6% of Chinese Internet users accessed the Internet via broadband, [270 million Chinese Internet users accessed the Internet via broadband] - an increase of over 100 million from 2007
Amount of registrations of CN domain names increased by 50.8% from 2007, and the amount of websites under .CN increased by 120.3%.

The Urban-Rural Gap

By the end of 2008, the size of rural Internet users had reached 84.6 million, increasing by 31.9 million from 2007, with the growth rate surpassing 60%, far exceeding that of urban Internet users.

Digital China Guide