Posted by shor
Photo Credit - Steve Webel
China. Even in this day and age, sensitive information rarely leaks out of the Great Internet Firewall.
Fortunately for Western pundits, China toots its horn every six months with the release of a half yearly report on Chinese internet development. The July 2008 edition was recently released in English but to save you from reading through 27 pages of dry research and occasional Engrish, SEOmoz has summarized the report for you.
Here are the top three facts that China wants you to know about the internet:
1. China has the most internet users in the world- "...by the end of June 2008, the amount of netizens in China had reached 253 million, surpassing that in the United States to be the first place in the world."
2. China has the most broadband users in the world
- "This report, the 22nd Statistical Report on the Internet Development in China, also indicates the number of broadband users has reached 214 million, which also tops the world."
3. China has the most cc-TLD domain names in the world
Source for charts: CNNIC, Nielsen Netratings, ITU
- "...by the time of July 22, the number of CN domain names, which was 12.18 million, had exceeded .de, the country-code Top Level Domain for Germany, thus becoming the largest country code Top-Level Domain names in the world."
So that's what the Chinese government wants you to know about their internet but SEOmoz couldn't resist creating a top 10 list, so we humbly suggest seven more nuggets you should know about China.
4. China's internet penetration rate continues to grow and grow and grow...
- US internet usage has hovered around a 70% penetration rate in the last five years, while Chinese internet penetration has jumped from 7% to almost 20% in the same time period.
- Translation: China could plausibly reach a similar penetration rate to the US within 20 years
- What impact would a single nation of almost one billion Internet users have on internet activities such as blogging, creating videos or online commercial transactions (i.e. buying stuff)? How much additional user generated content would Chinese users unleash on the world wide web? What Western companies are ready to take advantage of this flood of internet usage?
5. China loves
source: Pew Internet May 2008, CNNIC July 2008
- IM usage is more popular than email and using search engines in China
- 195 million Chinese (an incredible 77.2% of Chinese internet users) have used an instant messaging service in the last 6 months, compared to just 40.0% of US internet users who have _ever_ used IM
- Once online, 39.7% of Chinese internet users cite IM as the very first thing they do, more than any other internet activity
QQ client (look familiar?)
- Tencent's QQ program is the leading IM program with 77% market share
- Who? A bit more about QQ from their website:
- QQ has 342 million active user accounts
- QQ has 42 million peak concurrent users
- QQ has 26.1 million paying internet subscribers & 13.4 million paying mobile subscribers - wow an IM program with 40 million paying subscribers, I feel a bit of envy from MSN and Yahoo
- QQ.com is one of the biggest websites in the world, ranking in the top 3 web properties in China, alongside Baidu and Sina
- China has 601 million mobile phone users according to the latest government report
- From January 2008 to June 2008, there were 53.3 million new mobile phone users
- One carrier, China Mobile, has over 414 million mobile subscribers, ranked #1 in the world
- However, bad news: only 12% of these users have accessed the Internet. Because of the lack of proper 3G network (none of the Chinese telcos have a 3G license) an estimated 73 million had accessed the internet from a mobile phone
- Good news - the Chinese government plans to issue 3G licenses to the major telcos within the next 6 months, which means...
- A potential bonanza for phone manufacturers around the world as someone has to come good with 601 million new 3G handsets (the sheer size of the Chinese market will be beneficial for all as economies of scale ensure global prices for 3G handsets/accessories will fall)
- Think you know how to game social networks? Try going head-to-head with the "Fifty Cent Party" - an estimated 280,000 strong army of government-trained social networkers
- The Far East Economic Review says the Fifty Cent party has one objective - "To safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet"
- According to the Feer.com's source, high authority Chinese websites are forced to have their own in-house team of government goons patrolling content for political correctness... ouch!
- According to this fool.com article, 93 cities in China have more than 1 million population, compared to just 9 in the US
- Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau (and sometimes Guangdong and Shenzhen) are usually referred to as China's Tier I cities.
- Tier I cities are already saturated by foreign companies and foreign direct investment in just about every market you could think of...
- Which is where Tier II cities come in - boasting huge populations, transport hubs and booming economies, most Tier IIs fly under the radar despite having lower barriers to foreign entry. For example, Chongqing is a Tier II municipality with a whopping 32 million residents and more than 3 million internet users
- Check out the big 30 Tier II and Tier III cities showcased in this April 2007 China's 30 Rising Urban Stars
- Not sexism, as Chinese women are as likely as their male counterparts to go online - the internet gender ratio corresponds almost exactly with China's actual gender imbalance of 53% Male, 47% Female
- Included the above chart because I'm stumped, pretty sure the disparity has nothing to do with the infamous One Child policy (it was introduced in 1979) so what's going on with the over 50s?
- Q: What does China Mobile have in common with Google, GE, Microsoft, Coca~Cola?
- A: They represent the top 5 brands in the world, as measured by the dollar value of their brand
- From the way this dragon has risen from its slumber it may not be long before the first Chinese superbrand goes global - in 2007 four of the world's 100 most powerful brands were from China (five if you include HSBC bank)
So there you have it folks, 10 things you should know about China - I hoped SEOmoz has helped lift the red curtain enough to unveil the potential in the East.
What do you think are the big opportunities for online marketers in China?
If nothing else, the first question I'll be asking of our next generation of entrepreneurs is, ä½ ä¼šè¯´ä¸æ–‡å —?