Last month, government back researcher, China Internet Information Network Center CNNIC, published its report for 2010. (Here it is: http://research.cnnic.cn/html/1295343214d2557.html)
I read it and noticed something interesting:
1) Given China is the largest internet market in the world, this is only a matter of time. But anyway, if you care about statistics, by the end of last year, China has also become the largest mobile internet market in the world. CNNIC said it has 303 m mobile internet users. Over half of of Chinese internet users, 66%, surf the net with their mobile devices. 9.4% uses only their mobile phones to go online.
2) No. 1 sector in high growth is e-commerce. User of online shopping grew 48% last year. Much faster than the overall growth in internet population – 19%. Online payment and online banking also grew 45% and 48% – this obviously is to support online shopping.
3) Social network continued to grow fast. User growth rate of Social Network site and blogs is 33%. Even instant messaging grew 29%.
4) Sectors growing slowly are: music, games and video – their users grew 13%, 15% and 18% respectively. These are slower than the overall growth in online population – 19%.
5) Microblog penetration reached 13.8%. Maybe finally, Sina can start monetize its Weibo this year. They’ve talked about it for a long time.
6) Group buying penetration was only 4.1%, despite all the hypes. Now every leading players have raised considerable capital and Groupon has come to China, it will be a battle field this year.