Until December 2015, the number of Chinese netizens has reached 648.75 million. With an estimated population of 1374.6 million people in 2015, this means that about 47% of the Chinese citizens are online nowadays.
Mobile Internet User
Internet access via any mobile device which is able to connect to a wireless network can be referred to as “mobile internet”. As of 2014, China had around 644 million registered internet users. Among them, more than 4/5 access the Web via a mobile device. The possibility to stay online anytime at any place is received as important for every second Chinese netizen.
Source: Statista.com
What do they do when they are online?
1. Online Shopping
With the rapid growth of the online presence, the demand for online shopping opportunities in China continues to rise. The increase of the numbers of Chinese online shoppers can be seen as exponential from below 34 million in 2006 to over 361 million users in 2014, enabling this enormous spurt of China’s e-commerce sector. In 2015, 59.53 million new online shoppers have entered the online shopping world with a total retail e-commerce sales amounted to 672 billion US dollars (4.17 trillion RMB).The infamous singles day (11th of November) is the day of shopping for most Chinese online shoppers. In 2015, total Gross Merchandise Volume has reached the spectacular amount of 91.2 billion RMB, which is an increase of 158% compared to 2014. Among all the shoppers, 95 million were mobile buyers.
2. Online Payment
Different from online shopping, where users shop at a specific online store or mall, online payment can be seen as the easier way to buy things immediately in real life supermarket other than using cash or credit card. With over 400 million active registered users and 120+ million daily transactions, the online payment APP “Alipay” holds more than 80% of China’s third-party mobile payment sector. The innovative virtual wallet canbe used for take-outs, phone bills, and electricity, water and gas bills. It can be used in several places such as restaurants, convenient stores and any shop with Alipay option.
3. Social Networking
Chinese netizens’ interest of microblogs and social networking websites has decreased, showing a decline by 5.43 million from the end of 2013 to 275 million in 2014. Major reasons are the cut-throat competition from emerging social networking apps, e.g. WeChat, and lack of innovation. With about 500 million Chinese users and 100 million users abroad, WeChat is THE mobile messaging and social networking APP in China, making other platforms obsolete. Not only is WeChat important for private purposes, companies can use official accounts and the WeChat Wallet payment option to offer their services online. Making instant purchase possible.
4. Information Search
In addition to online shopping and entertainment, Chinese netizens browse the internet for financial and medical services. In order to be successful in reaching Chinese customers, to be found by them through the search engine, e.g. Baidu – the Chinese Google and Bing, is very important.
With 560 million regular users, Baidu has about 70% of the market share. Since search is one of the most popular internet services in China, it should be essential for every business strategy
All in all, it seems that in order to be successful in the Chinese market, a company has to be easy to find through searches online, be able to be connected and contacted while offering online payment options.