Growing Internet Use in China
With more than 630 million internet users in 2014, Internet use in China is still growing very fast. While its very first Internet connection has been made in 1987 with Germany, China is now the largest base of net users of the world, in spite of the ban of few of the most popular international websites such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Google. Indeed, Chinese Internet created its own equivalent websites. Tencent Group with Wechat for example, has more than 355 million active accounts in the world, and obviously, is a major player in the growth of Internet use in China.
With more than 3 billion internet users in the world, its penetration rate is up to 40%. This rate is nearly the same in China. However, it is still much lower than in other developed countries. Furthermore, while growing Internet use in China is now obvious, there is still a huge gap between the East part of China and the West part.
Chinese famous websites
Internet use in China is rising through the development of major players: Baidu, the famous Chinese search engine which is definitely the leader with more than 80% of the market share, WeChat with more than 355 million active accounts, Taobao, the famous website with more than 40 000 sales a minute… All of these websites are Chinese and enjoy the Growing Internet use of China. Beside, Chinese economy is still growing very fast, which give them some more opportunities. Even if, compared to the European penetration rate, which is more than 70%, Internet use in China can be perceived as low, its development is more than promising. Then with a population of 1.3 billion people, China could have more than a billion internet users soon.
Growing internet use has many consequences on the Chinese economy. As an example, Taobao sales reached $5.7 billion in a single day. It is said that this is going to triple in the next 5 years. With an unlimited choice, Taobao is one the most successful website of China. In this way, Taobao participates to the Growing Internet Use in China.
QQ, with more than 812 million active accounts all over the world, is the second largest social network on the earth right after Facebook.
Blocked websites modify the Internet usage in China
Chinese authorities banned some international websites such as Google, Youtube, Facebook… It is said that the success of QQ, WeChat and some other Chinese websites is due to the Chinese policy against the American World wide websites. Social Networks represent a huge part of the internet use; China has just created its own social networks.
Even if Google is definitely the world’s leader on its own market, its market share is only up to 3% in China.
Smartphone and Growing Internet Use in China
The smartphone market in China is huge. In 2012, China became the world’s largest global smartphone market. More than 85% of the phones’ sales are Smartphones. 4G is now well implemented in the main cities. In the metro, thousands of people are used to watch videos or to check something on the internet… WeChat is the main way to communicate in China and all over the world for free.
Companies are also concerned by the Growing Internet Use in China. How to work without internet connection?
Sources :
https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm
https://walkthechat.com/wechat-marketing/
https://www.statista.com/topics/1416/smartphone-market-in-china/
https://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/27/us-apple-results-idUSKBN0L02QG20150127
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/technology/apple-quarterly-earnings.html
