The China Statistical report on internet development was recently released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the report details country’s internet population and the development of different sectors, include Internet infrastructure, netizen scales, online shopping, online education, live-streaming, etc. here are 6 key takeaways.
1. The number of Internet users in China exceeded 900 million.
The report shows that as of March 2020, the number of Chinese netizens has reached 904 million, an increase of 75.08 million compared to 2018; among them, the number of mobile phone netizens is 897 million, with a proportion as high as 99.3%. In other words, it’s more than the entire population of Europe.
2. The Online education users increased rapidly during the epidemic.
Due to COVID-19, all schools has been delayed to open and teaching activities shifted to online, which also promoted the rapid growth of online education users. By March 2020, the number of online education users in China had reached 423 million, an increase of 222 million from the end of 2018, accounting for 46.8 percent of the total netizens. The number of daily active users of multiple online education applications has reached more than 10 million, and multiple media platform applications also cross-border online education such as DingTalk, Tencent Meeting, Huawei, JD, etc. They have all launched online education classes or education systems, to compete in the online education industry.
3. Social e-commerce and live streaming e-commerce have become new forces in the growth of online consumption.
Social e-commerce and live streaming e-commerce have become an important support for online consumption. By March 2020, the number of e-commerce live-streaming users had reached 265 million, accounting for 37.2% of online shopping users and 47.3% of live-streaming users.
4. Travel and Food delivery apps take a hit.
Affected by the epidemic, the scale and utilization rate of food delivery apps have declined significantly. The same is true for travel bookings, by March 2020, the number of online travel booking users in China was 373 million, a decrease of 37.05 million from 2018. However, with the improvement of pandemic situation in China and the report of Chinese Labor Day holiday, It shows that China's tourism market has rebounded and will be back sooner.
5. The number of short video users has increased significantly.
The number of short video users in China has reached 773 million, an increase of 125 million from 2018, accounting for 85.6% of the overall online netizens. Apps like Tiktok and Kwai are rapidly expanding overseas and support sharing videos on international platforms such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. Well-known blogger Li Ziqi created some cinematic-quality videos of life in rural China, her videos have drawn in fans all over the world. Currently, she has 10.2 million fans on Youtube. She has become a “window” to Chinese culture for overseas internet users.
6. China government turns to social media for propaganda.
The China government has been ramping up efforts to spread its message to their people through social media. According to the CNNIC report, there are 17,380 government account churning out positive short videos on Douyin. It also has 82,937 Toutiao accounts and 139,000 Weibo government accounts.
Download the full report (in Chinese) here.