Top Chinese Web Browsers in China

According to the least data released by China Central Bank, e-payment business kept rapid development and mobile payment experienced great increase in Q2 2015 in China . The total value of mobile payment reached $4.19 trillion with an increase of 445.14% from the same period last year.

In Q2 2015, banks in China had 24.976 billion e-payment transaction volume, which valued $92.99 trillion. Online payment had 10.398 billion transaction volume which valued $72.66 trillion with an increase of 44.57% YoY, while phone payment transaction volume reached $0.477 trillion with an increase of 191.78% YoY in Q2 2015.

In Q2 2015, non-bank agencies had online payment transaction volume of 20.66 billion, valued at $1.73 trillion with an increase of 107.75% YoY.。

Electronic Commercial Draft System had rapid development in Q2 2015. The commercial draft business had transaction volume 305.7 thousand which valued $227.8 billion with an increase of 102.93%.

Bill business had dropped a lot in Q2 2015. The total transaction volume was 104 million valuing $9.31 trillion with a decrease of 11.7% YoY.

Also read: China Offline Mobile Payment Insights in 2015

China “exports” the most number of students studying overseas in the world according to a UNSCO’s report. China and India, which have the most people in the world, also have the most students studying overseas in 2012.

In 2012, Chinese overseas students reached 694,400, ranking the top in the world, followed by India and South Korea with 189,500 and 123,700 overseas students respectively.

Also read: China Tourists Travel Intention Study 2015

In Q1 2015, the total transaction value of China online vacation travel market reached RMB11.06 billion (USD$1.80 billion), an increase of 59.8% year-on-year, and 21.7% QoQ according to the data of Analysys EnfoDesk.

•  Online vacation travel business extends to destination service.

In January. 2015, Ctrip released Local Play channel, Qunar set up Tourism Destination Bureau; in April, Tuniu began its online Local Play channel, and supported sighting, show tickets, wifi communication, foods, outdoors activities and others in many cities all over the world. The new measures of several major tourism companies show that destination service would be the most important part in 2015 online travel market.

•  Online vacation travel market penetrates into the upper section of industrial chain, online and offline services integrate further.

Tuniu increased its resource direct mining share to improve its supply chain, merged Zhongshan Travel and Classic Holiday Travel Agency to put forward some projects and at the same time ran its special projects to meet different needs of consumers.

Also read: Chinese Luxury Traveler Insights 2015

In Q1 2015, China mobile internet users reached 740 million with increase of 1.6% QoQ and 10.27% YoY, which showed stable growth in the mobile internet market according to data from EnfoDesk.

Also read: 24% of Top Global Mobile Internet Unicorns from China

In June 2015, Google Global still ranked the top by market share of 70.8% in the world’s search engine market with an increase of 2.26% from the previous month. Bing and Yahoo ranked the 2nd and 3rd. Compared with market structure in May, it had some difference in June’s search engine market.

Compared with Baidu’s market share in May, in June, it was replaced by Bing, ranking the 4th. Baidu’s market share decreased from 10.18% to 7.52% in June 2015.

Also read: Baidu, Sogou among Top 5 Biggest Search Engines in the World

In Q1 2015, China UnionPay’s total transaction value exceeded USD$1.9 trillion globally according to the latest data, which also means China UnionPay surpassed VISA for the first time in transaction value, becoming the biggest card liquidation organization in the world. According to the financial report of VISA, the total transaction value of VISA was USD$1.75 trillion in Q1 2015.

Besides, in terms of the number of issued cards by China UnionPay, it has already surpassed VISA, becoming the biggest international bank organization by total number of issued cards and transaction value in Q1 2015.

At present, China UnionPay card can be used in 150 foreign countries and regions with over 26 million merchants and 1.8 million ATMs all over the world. China UnionPay issued 5 billion cards in 40 foreign countries.

In 2014, China UnionPay debit card and credit card’s total transaction volume increased by 52.3%. Further, it is still keeping rapid development in transaction volume.

Also read: E-banking Replacing Over 80% of China’s Banking Transactions

From January to March in 2015, 60.97% China internet users visited female fashion websites directly. Male visitors accounted for 59.21% and visitors who are between 30 years old and 40 years old represented 42.5% according to Baidu’s research.

Most of the visitors visited female fashion websites directly from Jan to Mar in 2015, representing 60.97%.

Also read: China Navigation Websites Study

In Q1 2015, the total transaction value of China e-commerce market exceeded RMB3.48 trillion (USD$567.49 billion) with an increase of 10.1% YoY and 23.8% QoQ. In accordance with China B2B market and online shopping market in Q1 2015, e-commerce market had slowed its YoY growth. Besides, it is now evolving into a new stage.

According to data of iResearch, enterprises e-commerce accounted for 75.5% and small and medium e-commerce transaction represented 46.5%. Online shopping’s market share increased from 18.5% in Q1 2014 to 21.8% in Q1 2015.

Online travel is becoming a hot tendency as rapid development on mobile device and enterprises’ subsidy in China.

Also read: China B2B E-commerce Market in Q1 2015

In 2015, China mobile social networking users will reach 335.9 million with an increase of 20.7%, estimated by eMarketer. Besides, the number will continue grow and by 2019, users will exceed 480.4 million, representing 34.8% of total population.

In 2015, 83.0% of China social network users, and 32.5% of mobile phone users will use their devices for social networking at least monthly according to eMarketer’s research. Penetration is 57%, which is a bit higher as a percentage of China’s mobile phone internet users.

Also read: China Mobile Social Networking Overview & Top Apps

In Q1 2015 in China, the top 3 private car service apps were Didi private car (including Yihao private car), Yidao yongche and Uber by total number of active users. EnfoDesk estimates that China private car service will strengthen its service and become the first choice for tier-1 and tier-2 citizens in the near future.

Didi private car (including Yihao private car) ranked the top with 80.9%, followed by Yidao yongche  (17.5%) and Uber (8.1%).

Also read: Business Car Renting Services’ Potential in China

In Q1 2015, China online shopping transaction value exceeded RMB757.41 billion (USD$123.51 million) with an increase of 45.2% from the same period of last year. According to the data of National Bureau of Statistics in Q1 2015, online shopping transaction value accounted for 10.7% of total retail consumer goods.

Influenced by the Chinese New Year period, online shopping market had slowed its growth while it was still being developed.

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Total transaction value of China B2C e-commerce market was RMB373.71 billion (USD$60.94 billion), representing 49.3% in online shopping market in Q1 2015. In addition, it increased by 6 percentage from the same period of last year which indicates B2C will surpass C2C becoming the main stream of China online shopping market.

In China B2C e-commerce market, Tmall represented 58.6% while Jingdong’s market share was over 20% in Q1 2015. In terms of B2C platforms with owned goods category, Jingdong accounted for 56.3%, followed by Vipshop and Suning.

Also read: Global E-commerce Sites That Provide Direct Shipping to China

Total active users of China third-party mobile app store exceeded 420 million in Q1 2015. Nearly 58.7% China’s mobile internet users downloaded apps from third-party mobile app store. At present in China, internet enterprises such as 360 Mobile Assistant are competing for market share with mobile phone vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

According to iiMedia’s report in Q1 2015, China third-party mobile app store’s active users was 420 million (excluding App Store users, self-operating app store by mobile phone enterprises and network operators’ mobile app store).

Also read: 70% App Downloads From Mobile App Stores in China

In Q1 2015, China mobile shopping market total transaction value exceeds RMB36.23 billion (US$5.9 billion) according to data of iResearch. Affected by the Chinese New Year, mobile shopping’s QoQ growth in Q1 2015 was relatively slowed. However, iResearch estimates that in Q2 2015, mobile shopping would still keep rapid growth.

In terms of transaction value, in Q1 2015, China mobile shopping accounted for 47.8% of the whole online shopping market, which even had increased by 22 percentage from the same period last year.

There are two major reasons for China mobile shopping’s overwhelming development. Through 2014, netizens’ mobile shopping habits were getting mature. On the other hand, at the beginning of 2015, various e-commerce websites continuously improved service on mobile device to stimulate mobile shopping.

In Q1 2015, Taobao still ranked the top among all the mobile shopping apps, representing 84.5% market share, followed by Jingdong.

Also read: 20 Charts on China Mobile / WeChat Shopping Market

In January 2015, eastmoney.com had daily user  coverage of 14.85 million, ranking top among China’s financial websites by total reach, followed by ce.cn and hexun.com according to data from iResearch.

In terms of browsing time, eastmoney.com ranked top with 94.85 million browsing hours, followed by 10jqka.com and Yicai.com in Jan 2015 in China.

Also read: China Fast-Growing Internet Investment Product Insights in 2014

In China, over 40% housewives manage finance in families and they contribute to 60% domestic consumption revenue. China female internet users are playing more and more important role in China internet.

iResearch’s data showed that in 2014, clothing, shoes and bags accounted for 27.3% of all the categories of online products, being the best selling product category. Cosmetics ranked the third, which showed female online shopping is booming in China.

In 2014, Taobao and Tmall ranked top and second by UVs and PVs; and they are still the most used e-commerce websites among China female internet users.

Also read: China Female Mobile Gaming Users to Show Great Power in 2015

Kantar Worldpanel’s latest research showed that iOS market share was decreasing in 2 months in the US, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain in 2015. However, in China, iOS market share was still growing in four consecutive months since November 2014.

In November 2014, iOS market share in China was 18.1% and in February 2015, it increased to 27.6%.

Different from smartphone market in other countries like the US, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, China’s iOS market share is still growing rapidly as iPhone 6’s launched in October 2014; besides, China Mobile is promoting its 4G service. All these affected iOS market share in China in the first quarter in 2015.

The analyst from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said that citizens have great demand in iPhones and 59% iPhone6 users are China Mobile subscribers. Further, iPhone6 is still the top-selling smartphone in China cities. its market share increased from 9.5% to 10.2% in February 2015.

Apple’s iOS reached its highest ever share in urban China with one in every four smartphones (25.4%) sold being an iPhone for the three months ending in January 2015, a 4.5 percentage point increase over the same period in 2014 according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Xiaomi ranked the second among best-selling ones in Feb 2015 in China. Xiaomi was the top smartphone vendor in China by shipments volume in both Q4 2014 and 2014 according to IDC.

Also read: Six of Top 10 Smartphone Brands Worldwide in 2014 from China

Apple’s revenues in China were US$27 billion in 2014. According to Newzoo’s report, Apple has been the top technology brand in China by revenues, which is twice bigger than Huawei (US$17.5 billion) and Lenovo (US$14.7 billion), and nearly three times than Tencent in 2014.

According to Newzoo’s research, Chinese consumers tend to favor expensive mobile phones like iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. In China, Apple is not only a technology brand but also their desire for power and status. Total iPhone 6 order exceeded 4 million in 3 days before its official launch in China market.

Compared with Apple’s performance in China, Microsoft’s revenue was less than US$8.6 billion which represented less than 10% of total revenue globally. Besides, Sony’s revenue in China was US$4.4 billion in 2014.

Also read: Every One in Every Four Smartphones Sold in China is iPhone

On 20 April 2015, China Press and Publication Academy released the report of the 12th national reading survey which included reading on WeChat for the first time. The report showed that on average a Chinese adult reads on WeChat twice a day for over 40 minutes.

One-third of Chinese leisure time is spent on the Internet, especially on mobile phones in China according to CCTV’s research in 2015.

China Press and Publication Academy’s survey involved China mobile phone users from 29 provinces and municipalities in 2014. The data showed that over 60% China adult mobile users read on WeChat in 2014. There was little difference between male mobile users and female ones.

Further, most mobile users reading on WeChat would like to chat and browse WeChat Moments, which accounted for 80%. Reading news, reading shared articles on WeChat Moments and reading articles published on WeChat official accounts represented 72.9%, 67.1% and 20.9% respectively.

There were many practical functions on WeChat in 2014. 27.2% WeChat readers favored QR code scanning; 19% readers used QQ mail and 19% used “shake to find friends nearly”; 15.3% chose to use WeChat payment while 7% readers used online ticket booking and food ordering service in 2014.

WeChat team launched “Shake – Nearby” platform (based on Bluetooth technology offering offline merchants to connect with mobile users) on 12 April 2015 to merchants targeting China’s O2O market. And WeChat quietly launched a cash reward feature for WeChat official accounts in Feb 2015.

Also read: WeChat Wi-Fi to Step on A New Stage in China

China online travel was a RMB307.79 billion (US$50.33 billion) market with an increase of 38.9% in 2014 according to iResearch. Online ticket market, online hotel booking market and online vacation exceeded RMB193.07 billion (US$31.57 billion), RMB63.25 billion (US$10.34 billion) and RMB44.88 billion (US$7.33 billion) respectively in 2014.

China online ticket market is relatively mature in online travel market. According to iResearch’s data, online ticket booking market value in 2014 was RMB193.07 billion with an increase of 41.1%.

It is believed that there are two major reasons for online ticket’s rapid development in China:

1. Qunar, Alitrip and other online travel companies now provide various online ticket service.
2. Airlines now promote their official websites to provide attractive price for travelers.

Also read: China Rural Travel Exceeded 1.2 Bln Person-trips in 2014

According to news on press conference on 3 February 2015, the number of China travelers to countryside in 2014 was over 1.2 billion person-trips. China countryside now can provide various kinds of service for travelers around the world.

74% rural residents would like to travel in 2014 according to China Tourism Industry Report in 2014 released by China Tourism Academy. Travelers’ need is increasing. See online travel market overview in 2014 here.

Rural areas in China can supply agricultural products as well as service for people, such as rural home food and accomodations.

Chen Xiwen, one member in charge of rural business in China, said that China travelers to countryside accounted for 30% of total travelers in China in 2014. Besides, revenue from countryside traveling was RMB320 billion (US$52.21 billion). At present, there are 2 million rural home inns and 100,000 specialized towns in China.

Also read: China Rural Online Shopper Insights in 2015

China online shopping market is becoming mature. The e-commerce providers now are exploring markets in rural areas in China. Alibaba, Jingdong and other e-commerce giants are making efforts in online shopping market. Tencent’s latest research shows China’s rural online shoppers have great potential.

PHOTOS: How China Internet Companies Advertise in Rural Areas

64% China rural internet users shop online via mobile phone in 2015. China mobile internet’s rapid development stimulates rural online shoppers’ consumption.

43.5% rural internet users visit e-commerce websites for many times in a week in 2015; e-commerce websites are popular among rural internet users.

When it comes to purchasing online, the frequency is much lower; only 28.2% of them shop online for at least once a month in 2015.

73.6% respondents from rural areas in China use Tmall and Taobao for online shopping in 2015. Besides, 3.6% rural internet users shop on foreign e-commerce websites.

Top 3 categories of products among rural online shoppers are home appliance & digital product, clothing, agriculture tool in 2015 in China.

34.7% rural online shoppers are sensitive about prices most among all factors that affect their decisions for purchase, followed by quality and post-sale service in 2015.

In rural areas in China, 17.6% online shoppers complain about home express service in 2015 which shows that logistics system is still not completed in rural areas. In terms of payment, online shoppers from urban or rural areas have no such big difference. With cloud technology and mobile platform, Alipay aims to improve medical, public transportation, public services in third & fourth tier cities, and help popularize mobile finance service in rural China.

E-commerce giants have placed ads in rural areas since the second half of 2014 in China while 40.7% rural respondents still seldom see ads in 2015.

There are 78.3% rural respondents who never use financial service on e-commerce websites in 2015.

Also read: Over 60% of China’s Rural Internet Users are Online Shoppers

Average daily leisure time in China is 2.55 hours, which is more than three years ago (2.16 hours) according to CCTV’s latest research on China economic life. One third of Chinese leisure time is spent on the internet, especially on mobile phones in China. The research also shows that high-income group are those who have more leisure time in China in 2015.

Mobile internet is booming in China. Baidu mobile search revenue surpassed that of desktop computers in Dec 2014. And, Weibo mobile ad revenues now make up more than half of Weibo’s total ad revenues in 2014 according to Weibo’s financial results.

People whose annual income are between RMB50,000 and 60,000 have less than 160 minutes for leisure per day while those whose over RMB210,000 have 180 to 190 minutes leisure time in China in 2015.

Though the leisure time is increasing in China, the number is still half of the one in developed countries like Germany, and the U.S. One third leisure time is spent on the internet and one-third on television, one-tenth on reading.

Besides, the research points out that among low-income group whose income are below RMB20,000, 12.01% of them do not have any leisure time. Only 5.87% of Chinese people whose income are over RMB100,000 have no leisure time in 2015.

Also read: 74% Chinese Rural Residents Willing to Travel in 2014

As the core source for mobile phone service system, ROM is more and more important in mobile internet times. In a survey conducted by Tencent, 80% China smartphone user respondents rooted their smartphones in 2014.

The popularity of Android open source system stimulates more and more smartphone users to root their mobile phones in China.

The major reasons to root smartphone were to update new system version and experience other systems in China in 2014.

Compared with traditional channels to download ROM, ROM official website is more resourceful and categorized. 36.4% respondents would like to download on official websites in 2014. However, there were fewer smartphone users downloading ROM from online communities.

ROM’s brand is the first factor to consider when choosing which one to use by China smartphone users in 2014. High-level version ROM can not only bring more functions, but also assure the app compatibility.

ROM with system apps only is smartphone users’ favorite, representing 69.5% in China in 2014. ROMs with various apps were not popular among users, as it only accounted for 6.8% in the research.

Also read: 50% China Users Keep Taxi App at the End of Subsidies

In 2014, the total value by revenue of China internet market was RMB637.73 billion (US$104.15 billion) with 74.4% in revenue via PC. Alibaba’s market value exceeded RMB253.41 billion (US$41.38 billion), ranking top among all China internet companies in 2014, followed by Tencent and Baidu according to data of iResearch.

As of 31 December 2014, top 5 listed internet companies by market value were Alibaba (US$253.41 billion), Tencent (US$135.50 billion), Baidu (US$80.32 billion), Jingdong (US$31.52 billion) and Netease (US$13.01 billion). Since Alibaba’s IPO in September 2014, it has been the biggest internet company in China.

Mobile Alibaba ranked top among China mobile shopping providers with market share of 86.2% in 2014, followed by Jingdong and Vipshop. Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall played the most important roles in China mobile shopping market.

Read more about Alibaba: INFOGRAPHIC: Alibaba Investment Timeline 2005-2014

Also read: BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2015: 3 of Top 5 are Internet companies

Alibaba’s latest research shows that their e-tailers’ desired marketing were Taobao affiliate marketing (73%), SNS (50%), online ad placement (49%) and content marketing (33%) according to a questionnaire involving 38,000 respondents in 2015.

41.12% e-tailers still don’t have any paid external online marketing. 39.1% of them tend to favor Weibo/ WeChat/ SNS marketing according to the research.

Desired marketing from Alibaba e-tailers affliate marketing:

Also read: China Mobile Marketing Market 2014-2017

Weibo has been one of the indispensable mobile apps among China internet users with the popularity of smartphones. Weibo conducted a survey on smartphone development involving 100 million active smart device logging in Weibo in Q4 2014. More devices used logging in Weibo are China’s domestic brands. Among top 10 new smart device on Weibo in Q4 2014, domestic brands accounted for 85%.

In Q4 2014, among the new smartphones used Weibo app, high-end smartphone (>RMB3,000) accounted for 37.1% while smartphones between RMB1,200 and 2,999 accounted for 36.7% which indicates a large percentage of high-income users on Weibo.

In terms of Weibo’s monthly active users’ smartphone brands, Apple ranked top, representing 34.4%, followed by Samsung and Xiaomi.

Also read: Profile of China B2C E-C Weibo Accounts Users in 2014

2015 will be a year full of opportunities and challenges for China mobile gaming market. China female mobile gaming users still have much potential and their habit of paying for games is expected to develop according to DataEye. Various gaming companies are sparing no efforts to attract gaming users.

Card games, as well as mind games, are popular among China mobile gaming users in 2015.

In 2014, heavy games were increasing from 42.11% to 56.85%. Compared to mild games, heavy games are more interesting. Besides, heavy game users are more willing to pay for games which indicates that in 15 years, heavy game’s market share will be bigger. See more about China mobile gaming market in 2014 here.

Also read: Chinese Female Internet Users Insight

Individual iOS developers in China are different from iOS developers in companies. CocoaChina’s survey online shows that 14% individual iOS developers’ monthly salary was over US$10,000 in 2014.

Among all the respondents, male programmer accounted for 93% while female ones only accounted for 7% in China.

Compared to high cost of game development and maintenance, individual developers favored app development in China in 2014.

21% respondents had no salary while 14% developers could have over US$10,000 monthly salary in 2014.

The major source of individual developers’ revenue was from mobile ads, which representing 42.97% in China in 2014.

In terms of years to do individual developing, developers who had experience over 5 years only accounted for 4.52% in China in 2014.

Most individual developers’ apps were fewer than 10, which accounted for 83.43% in China in 2014.

Also read: China iOS Game Players Spend 3 Times More Than Android Ones

Qihoo 360 started its smart furniture strategy and it planned to invest ten billion yuan to cooperate with over 100 companies. 360 will integrate cloud service, big data platform, online marketing platform, app development with open chipset to create a complete smart furniture ecosystem according to Zhou Hongyi, president of 360 in March 2015.

The official website for 360 smart furnitures, Home.360.cn is already online; companies can apply to join in. Users can know about 360 smart furnitures’ latest news and details on official website.

According to the latest news, brands like Haier, Boss, Aux, CIM, Dongdong Sound had joined in 360 smart furniture strategy which indicates 360 made another great step since its success in safe router, smart camera, children smart watch and portable Wi-fi.

Related: Qihoo 360 MAUs Exceeded 500M in Dec 2014

At the end of 2014, 360 established a joint venture company with Coolpad, worth US$400 million. It is expected to design, produce and sell mobile phone and other mobile terminal devices.

Some insiders believed that 360’s strategy of smart furniture is similar to Xiaomi’s role in smart furniture market in China. However, some people point out that 360’s strategy did not include television, fridge, and other kinds of big home appliance. 360 is now still making efforts to cover more appliance.

Xiaomi is ranked the most innovative Chinese company (35th globally) in 2014 according to BCG’s 2014 global innovation survey.

Also read: China Wearable Smart Device Insights 2014

GBTA expects China to continue to grow its domestic business travel market much more rapidly than the other countries in the world with estimated spending growth of 14.2% in 2015 and 12.1% in 2016. China is poised to overtake the U.S. as the number one business travel market in the world.

According to the report of GBTA, China is to surpass the U.S. in spending by 2017 considering their current and estimated growth in business travel market.

China’s economic growth projections in the near term remain robust, which bode well for a strong business travel market, growing more rapidly than the other major markets globally,

said Stanford Lin, Vice President and Head of Products at Visa China.

Visa is committed to working with financial institutions and merchant partners to offer value-add benefits that help companies and business travelers better manage their travel expenses.

Outbound tourism is popular among Chinese travelers. Some European airlines promote cheap tickets to attract travelers to Europe according to CNN’s report.

Japan has also added some special travel trains with delicious food supply to attract travelers. Besides, Japan’s luxury train can provide luxury goods and food to stimulate travelers’ consumption home and abroad according to Nikkei Asian Review. Shoppers from China spent 18% more on Tax Free Shopping in 2014 compared to 2013 according to Global Blue.

Australia is the top luxury travel destination, followed by France. Maldives shoots into third place. UK back into the Top 10.

China has been the largest market for Germany’s domestic travel in Asian. During Chinese year period, German’s merchants promoted various events to attract Chinese travelers. See more about Chinese New Year Traveler Insights here.

Oxford research report shows China and other new markets will promote global travel industry into a prosperous stage in 10 years.

Also read: China Inbound Travelers in 2014

The number of monthly active users on China mobile advertising platform was over 500 million, which was much bigger than the US. China has been the largest mobile marketing market in the world. 

Daily impressions of China mobile ad platform were over 1.8 billion with an average click through rate of 1.3%.

Apps like gaming & entertainment as well as news can generate more mobile ad display impressions in China in 2014.

Also read: China Top 10 Online Advertising Media in 2014

Among the list of China top 100 online games by downloads in 2014, role play games and card & chess games were favored by online gaming users in China. RPG games accounted for 43% while card and chess game accounted for 34% in 2014 by total number of downloads.

In 2014, top types of China online games by revenue were card and role play games, which accord with top types of games by downloads in China.

Also read: Mobile Almost A Quarter of China Online Gaming Market in 2014

In Q4 2014, total active users of China mobile app store users exceeded 411 million excluding users from App Store, mobile phone company’s app store and operator’s app store. In Q1 2015, users would be 420 million in China according to iiMedia.

The top three app distribution players in China in the last quarter of 2014 are Baidu league, 360 league and Tencent’s with 42%, 22.3% and 21.8% market share respectively according to EnfoDesk.

Also read: Top 100 Mobile Apps in China

According to data from China Tourism Academy, total revenue generated from China inbound tourism market reached $51.646 billion with an increase of 3.27% year on year, ranking 4th in the world, following America, France and Spain in 2013.

In 2013, top 10 countries by foreign travelers were South Korea, Japan, Russia, America, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore and Australia.

Also read: Chinese New Year Traveler Insights 2015

Although China retail’s growth rate has fallen from a peak of 15.6% in 2009 and is slowing, China remains irresistible to global retail chains. China is expected to have average annual retail volume growth of 8.7% in 2015 & 2016. By 2018, it will be the world’s biggest retail market in the world.

The total retail sales of China consumer goods reached 2,580.1 billion yuan ($414 billion), up by 11.9% year-on-year according to National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2014. Further, online shopping value accounted for 10.7% of total retail value in China.

Besides, in the first two months of 2015, China online retail sales of goods was 399.1 billion yuan, increased 47.4%, accounting for 8.3 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods. Such great success in China’s retail market is partly due to its rapid development in e-commerce market nowadays. See e-commerce market performance in 2014 here.

China is becoming increasingly acquisitive in the food and drinks sectors. In the first half of 2014, food and drink deals accounted for 17% of total Chinese outbound M&A activity.

Asia Retail Sales Volume Growth (%)

Also read: China Online Retail Market Grows 3 Times Faster Than Retail Market

Chinese consumers can save spend when they choose apps that offer subsidies or Hongbao, coupon nowadays. In the internet times, many apps would provide subsidies to acquire users, which further changes people’s lifestyle in China. Tencent carried out a survey about consumers’ long term behavior about apps with subsidies offers and those without subsidies. 50% of respondents will keep taxi app after it stopped offering subsidies in China.

As of 30 September 2014, the number of China taxi app users was 154 million. Didi Taix app’s users exceeded 100 million in 2014. The total subsidies were over RMB1.4 billion(US$227.08 million). Besides, during double 12 (12 December), Didi Taxi app offered RMB130 million and Kuaidi Taxi app poffered RMB180 million in subsidies. At present, the research shows taxi app is the most used app with subsidies.

Take-out apps accounted for 20.8% of all the apps with subsidies in 2015. The competition among take-out apps started in the second half of 2014. The most users were students from colleges according to Tencent’s research in 2014.

Also read: Business Car Renting Services’ Potential in China

In 2014, total transaction value of China online shopping market exceeded RMB2.8 trillion (US$453.61 billion) with an increase of 48.7% according to latest data of iResearch. China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ official data shows online shopping value accounted for 10.7% of total retail value in China.

iResearch estimated that in 2018, total transaction value would be RMB7.3 trillion (US$1.18 trillion) in China online shopping market.

Related: Apparel: Most Popular Category Among China Online Shoppers

Also read: Alibaba Has over 86% Share of China Mobile Shopping Market in 2014

In 2014, total transaction value of China online gaming market was RMB110.81 billion (US$17.95 billion) with an increase of 24.3% YoY. Besides, mobile gaming represented 24.9% market share, which was the first time to surpass browser games in 2014.

In Q4 2014, mobile gaming’s revenue would exceed RMB6 billion according to the research of CNG, IDC and TalkingData.

Also read: China’s Booming Mobile Gaming Market with 330M Users

As of June 2014, the number of China online video users exceeded 439 million. And, the number of mobile video users was 294 million according to data of CNNIC.

According to Tencent’s latest research, China online video users have various needs nowadays. Their habit of paying for online videos is expected to advance in China in 2015.

The research shows 75% of China online video users watch video which indicates great consumption potential in the market.

China online video users watching videos for over one hour accounted for 73.2% in Tencent’s research. 47.5% watch over two hours on a daily basis.

Popular categories of online videos among users are movies, TV play, news, variety live show and so on in 2015. Compared with traditional television, internet users can choose to watch their favorite movies, TV plays with flexibility of forwarding or pause.

Only 25.1% China respondents would like to pay for variety live show videos.

The data indicates the habit of paying for online video is still not developed well in China. Nearly 80% of respondents didn’t pay for online videos. Further, online video providers’ better service may stimulate users’ consumption potential in online video market.

In terms of consumption on online videos, 63.9% respondents would accept spend lower than 20 yuan every month in China.

Among paid users, 85% respondents choose to buy VIP membership directly while 13.4% choose to  pay for single online video.

78.4% respondents buy VIP membership on online video official websites.

Most of the online video users who buy VIP membership are attracted by various content of online video.

Many frustrations among users exist after buying VIP membership, such as some videos are not smooth when watching.

Also read: China Online Video Market in 2014

In 2014, total transaction value of China online video market was RMB23.97 billion(US$3.88 billion) with an increase of 76.4% from the same period of last year according to data of iResearch. The core revenue source of online video market remains advertising revenue in China.

In 2014, revenue from other business had rapid growth in China online video market which exceeded RMB6.17 billion(US$0.99 billion) with YoY increase of 220.4%. 

In 2014, the increased revenue from ads and other business accounted for 52% and 40.9% of total increased revenue (RMB10.39 billion). Besides, terminal equipments’ (lll-in-one Internet TV and Internet box) sales value as well as online gaming sales value were main strength for some online video providers.

In 2014, China online video advertising market was still the most energetic one in overall online video market, which accounted for 63.4% of total transaction value. China government will strengthen the supervision for Internet television market which indicates terminal equipments (all-in-one Internet TV and Internet box) market will keep rapid growth with orders in the future.

In 2014, total transaction value of China online video advertising market exceeded RMB15 billion (US$2.43 billion) while iResearch estimated in 2018, the number would be over 50 billion yuan.

Total transaction value of China mobile video advertising market was RMB3.21 billion (US$5.20 billion) with an increase of 572% YoY in 2014.

Read more about China online video users’ profile: China online video market overview in Q3 2014.

Also read: 33% of People in China Watching Online Video Every Day

In 2014, total transaction value of China online advertising market exceeded RMB154 billion (US$24.95 billion) with an increase of 40% from the same period of last year.

In 2014, video ads and search engine ads had rapid and stable growth in market share in China online advertising market. In 2014, search engine ads remained the top, representing 28.5% market share, followed by e-commerce ads and banner ads according to data of iResearch.

It was estimated by iResearch that in 2014, Baidu’s ads revenue would exceed RMB49 billion (US$7.94 billion) with an increase of 53.5% YoY, ranking top among all the online advertising media in China, followed by Taobao and Tencent. Besides, Taobao and Baidu’s total ads revenue accounted for 56.2% market share, which were the dominant force in the market.

In terms of the YoY growth rate, iQiyi PPS, Qihoo 360 and Tencent were the top 3 ones.

1. iQiyi spared no efforts on videos and programs with high quality. Besides, it invested more on mobile device to realise ads premium in 2014.
2. Qihoo 360 strengthened brand building and it continuously promoted search traffic in 2014.
3. Assisted by large social group, Tencent’s promotional platform-Guangdiantong realised rapid improvement in ads revenue in 2014. In 2015, WeChat will further open its advertising platform which will further increase Tencent’s ads revenue.

Also read: Chinese Traditional Brand Advertisers Favor Mobile Advertising

Traveling is popular among Chinese people nowadays. Especially, during Chinese New Year in 2015, Chinese travelers showed their strong consumption ability. It was estimated that China tourism market would accept 250 million trips with an increase of 11% from the same period of last year, worth RMB140 billion(US$22.68 billion) according to the latest research of China Tourism Academy and Ctrip in 2015.

According to the latest data, China’s domestic tourism is growing steadily while outbound tourism is developing with rapid growth. The favored destinations for domestic travel were Beijing, Sanya, Xiamen, Chengdu, Lijiang during Chinese New Year in 2015. The popular countries for China outbound travelers were Thailand, South Korea, Japan and the US.

Nearly 80% of the respondent hope to travel during Chinese New Year holiday in 2015 as shown in Ctrip Spring Festival Travel Intention Report, much higher than the previous year.

During Chinese New Year in 2015, travelers from 145 countries in the world booked air tickets, hotels, and other tourism products via Ctrip’s official website as well as its app to go for 445 travel destinations. Ctrip is one of the popular online traveling apps in China, see more about China online traveling apps: China’s Top 4 Online Travel Companies Compared

In terms of domestic tourism market in China, Beijing remained top among all domestic travel destinations. Shanghai accepted 3.802 million travelers with an increase of 4.8%, worth RMB3.749 billion(US$607.42 million); Jiangsu province accepted 2.98 million travelers from 12 scenic attractions with an increase of 16% worth RMB96.22 million（US$15.58 million) during Chinese New Year in 2015. Besides, tier-2 and tier-3 cities are now developing rapidly in traveling industry. Chongqing, Nanjing and Xi’an were hot cities for travelers to visit.

In terms of outbound tourism market, driven by good exchange rate and flexible travel visa, Chinese travelers were willing to travel overseas during Chinese New Year in 2015. Besides, outbound travelers accounted for over 60% of all. 300,000 Chinese travelers went to Thailand while 120,000 travelers went to South Korea.

Japan

Japan issued 250,000 travel Visas in January 2015 to attract Chinese travelers, which created the record of most visa from Japanese government. According to Japan’s official data, in 2014, 2.04 million Chinese travelers went to Japan and they consumed about RMB29.5 billion(US$4.77 billion).

South Korea

Estimated by Tourism Academy of South Korea, there would be 120,000 Chinese travelers going to South Korea during Chinese New Year in 2015.

South Korea received record number of Chinese visitors in 2014, easily breaking 2013’s record of 4.3 million Chinese visitors. The full year could even match the growth in arrivals seen during November 2014, when Chinese visitor numbers surged +67% from a year earlier. Global Blue estimates that by 2018, more than 10 million Chinese will visit South Korea every year

China will encourage more second and third tier cities to open direct flights to South Korea. Meanwhile, China will drive more cities to accept the landing visa and 72 hours transit visa, and simplify arrival departure procedures. Both countries will gradually implement a visa-free policy.

Chinese Travelers’ Strong Consumption

It is important to remember that for the seventh consecutive year Chinese globe shoppers are still the biggest-spending nationality, spending on average 736 Euros per transaction.

China has a population of more than 1.3 billion, including about 75 million consumers active in the global luxury goods market. During Chinese New Year in 2015, Chinese travelers would continuously show their strong consumption capability.

Also read: China Inbound Tourism Industry Overview

Business social networking is growing fast in China nowadays. According to Tencent’s latest  research, 52.9% respondents used business communication tools in their companies in 2014 including Tencent RTX, Enterprise Fetion, Enteprise QQ as well as Netease EIM.

According to the latest data of Tencent’s research, the most used communication tool in the company was QQ, which accounted for 37.6%, followed by WeChat(23%).

Although the popularity of company communication tools was over 50% in 2014, only 14.5% of users took the tools as most used communication tools in the company which indicates there are many issues that need to be solved for business communication.

46.4% respondents showed their concern about not having effective communication tools in the company in the research in 2014.

Most used feature is to search for colleagues’ contacts which made it the most important function of company communication tools at work.

As the rapid development of mobile internet, mobile working is popular. It is more convenient to login on mobile phone as well as desktop.

There are more challenges for paid company communication tools in China. 74% respondents did not pay for such tools according to Tencent’s research.

53.9% respondents wanted Company WeChat Moments to share their working updates in the research.

Also read: China Mobile Social Networking Overview & Top Apps

As of November 2014, total fans of China B2C e-commerce websites Weibo accounts exceeded 30 million, which provided a large number of consumers for  China online shopping market. According to Weibo’s latest research, here is the profile of Weibo fans of China B2C e-commerce websites accounts in 2014.

By geographic, most fans were from southeastern coastal areas in 2014. 82% Sina Weibo users shopped online in Q3 2014.

Also read: Reasons Why China Internet Users Buy on Weibo

Huawei and Xiaomi are now well-known mobile phone brands in China. Huawei has a history of over 10 years while Xiaomi has been on the market for 5 years. In 2014, their revenue had both over USD$11 billion.

China’s domestic mobile phone brands, such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo were competing market share with Samsung. Influenced by decrease in smartphone market, Samsung suffered QoQ decreases in profit in 5 continuous quarters.

Xiaomi ranked the most innovative Chinese company (35th globally) in 2014 according to BCG’s 2014 global innovation survey. Xiaomi is active on Weibo, Wechat, Baidu Tieba, QQ, and other online forums. When it was just founded, their staff spent a lot of time on forums, making comments, and posting. See Xiaomi’s marketing success here.

Huawei consumer business group revenue totalled 12.2 billion, an increase of 30% YoY according to Huawei in 2014. Total shipment of Huawei smartphone was over 75 million units in 2014, up 45%. Huawei was ranked fifth in 2014 worldwide smartphone shipments.

Also read: Bloomberg: China Ranked 22nd World’s Most Innovative Country

Nowadays, the penetration of internet investment products has exceeded 45% in china. The internet investment products, such as P2P, Yu’E Bao, WeChat Licaitong and so on, are very popular among internet users according to research of Nielsen.

Since Alibaba’s launch of Yu’E Bao in June 2013, there are more and more internet investment products coming out in China. By the third quarter of 2014, Yu’E Bao’s users were over 149 million. Yu’E Bao’s exceeded RMB578.9 billion (US$94.09 billion), contributing over 98% of Tian Hong Fund’s total capital as of 31 Dec 2014.

Compared Yu’E Bao with bank financial products, consumers have higher expectation about bank financial product. The convenience internet investment products, low purchase standards as well as good liquidity are 3 major reasons for consumers purchase internet investment products in China in 2014.

Compared Yu’E Bao with bank financial products, consumers have higher expectation about bank financial product. The convenience internet investment products, low purchase standards as well as good liquidity are 3 major reasons for consumers purchase internet investment products in China in 2014.

Besides, 40% Yu’E Bao’s users checked their earnings every day while over 80% of users check every week in 2014. Some users showed their satisfactory when they make a profit from internet investment products which demonstrates the happy experience brought by internet investment products.

Also read: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral

In 2014, China internet users were active on Weibo, 82% Sina Weibo users bought online in Q3 2014, which made Weibo top among social apps in the world according to data of Global Web Index. The top 3 e-commerce campaigns on Weibo were Tmall’s “Let Hongbao Fly”, Jingdong’s “618 Party On”, Dangdang’s “Gan Zuo Gan Dangdang” in 2014.

Related: China’s Top 10 B2C Websites on Weibo in 2014

No. 3 CeDangdang’s Weibo Campaign

Celebrating its 15 year birthday on 20 October, Dangdang used this opportunity to re-brand itself as a complex B2C e-commerce platform. This 15-day campaign attracted over 40,000 Weibo users to participate.

Also read: WeChat, Weibo or Alipay? Who Won Hongbao War in 2015?

Mobile gaming has been the most powerful growth engine for China gaming industry. In Q3 2014, total revenue of China mobile gaming market was RMB5.79 billion (US$940.3 million) with a high increase; further, in Q4 2014, the revenue would exceed RMB6 billion according to the research of CNG, IDC and TalkingData.

According to the research, China internet users tend to favor games on mobile device rather than on the desktop. The activeness, as well as frequency on mobile gaming indicated users’ increasing interest in mobile gaming. Especially, the chess and card games were the most active ones in 2014 in China.

Mobile gaming is becoming a habit for many China mobile users’ daily life. See more about China mobile gaming users’ profiles here .

Compared with other market segments in China gaming industry, mobile gaming had the highest growth in sales revenue as well as the number of users.

The number of China’s mobile gaming users was already over 0.33 billion in H1 2014 and it is believed that there is still great potential in online gaming market with its rapid growth in users according to Nielsen.

Also read: China Mobile Internet Statistics 2014

Estimated by China Tourism Academy, China would accept 3.76 billion person trips in 2014 with total revenue of RMB3.3 trillion (US$0.53 trillion). With the overwhelming development of mobile internet as well as improvement of social media, scenic attraction social media accounts will have more influence. On Weibo, there are already large number of travelers interacting with travel related Weibo accounts.

Among all the travel related accounts on Weibo in 2014, city tourism boards accounted for 46%, which were the major ones on Weibo, followed by scenic attraction accounts and travel organizations in 2014.

From the three charts above, province tourism boards and overseas tourism boards accounts both had activeness, coverage, popularity and impact index higher than the average number in the industry in 2014 which indicated they performed well enough on Weibo.

In terms of impact index from 2011 to 2014, the overall impact index of travel institution accounts increased from 106 to 134. Various travel institutions paid more attention to efforts on Weibo and their fans on Weibo accounts increased continuously in 2014.

During the festivals like Tomb-sweeping Festival, Labour Day and Dragon Boat Festival, there were most daily Weibo posts in 2014. While during Spring Festival, Tomb-sweeping Festival and National Day, there were more daily searches than usual days in 2014.

Top Provinces by Visits During Spring Festival in 2014

Top Provinces by Visits During Labor Day in 2014

Top Provinces by Visits During National Day in 2014

Here were the top scenic attractions in China during major festivals in 2014.

Take the Liuzhou tourism board account on Weibo as an example, since it updated Weibo homepage as well as service on 22 July 2014, its official account on Weibo had increasing fans. In August, Liuzhou tourism board account’s daily fans increased by 88.6% from June 2014. Besides, its impact index got higher than before.

According to Baidu, during the period from July to August in 2014, which was the summer holiday in China, the daily travel search index on mobile device was more than the one on desktop computers. Besides, in July 2014, the index on mobile device had an increase of 50% from the same period of last year.

Also read: Insights of China Video Sharing on Weibo