485 Million Netizens Strong: The Demographics of China’s Internet Rise [CNNIC Report]

CNNIC (China Internet Information Network Center – 中国互联网信息中心) is the official Chinese state agency in charge of registering and managing internet domains (.CN) and traffic. Every six months, the research department of CNNIC publishes a set of reports providing the latest information on the development of China’s internet sector. They are considered the most detailed source of data, but also the least credible. Nevertheless, CNNIC’s semi-annual reports do provide an overview of China’s internet trends and insights to its future.

General Internet Population

In July, CNNIC released its 28th edition of China’s Internet Development Report, recording growth of the general internet population and across each sector, from group-buying to social networking. Overall, China’s netizens reached 485 million users by the end of June, almost twice America’s 245 million netizens. Growth rates are now declining every half-year, with a current internet penetration rate of 36.2%.

China's semi-annual internet population growth since 2007.12

China’s Internet Users are Young

Predictably, when internet users are broken down according to age groups, the youth population (ages 10-29) dominated with 56.8% penetration. Statistics show that older demographic groups have been slow to adopt the internet, although it’s interesting to see a slight increase within the 50-59 year-old bracket. Over 57% of China’s internet users are under 30.

China's internet user's age groups

Mobile Internet Rising

Mobile internet users are continuing to grow, with 317.68 million current users. But like the general internet population, its growth is also on a declining trend (red doted line), signaling a slow down of Chinese internet growth. According to some analysts, these are pre-symptoms of a market bubble that could take the form of a Chinese dot-com crisis. However, this is far from a unanimous analysis with a strong case against the crisis theories.

Mobile internet users' growth trend

Why not use the Internet?

China’s population is nearing 1.4 billion, but a large cross-section of its population is still not accessing the internet. CNNIC called attention to six main reasons why in the graph below.

Why not use internet? (from left to right) 1). Don't know how to use PC or internet; 2). Lack of computing equipment; 3). Lack of internet infrastructure; 4). No time; 5). Not interested; 6). Expensive internet cost.

Despite these obstacles, the CNNIC predicts the Chinese internet population to break the 500 million-user mark by the end of 2011.

Internet Population Segments

1). eCommerce

eCommerce has seen slight increase since December 2010. With the invasion of group-buying clones and their “50% off” deals, users have migrated en masse to those sites.

2). Group Buying

Groupon clones like Meituan.com and Lashou.com have been carpeting both online and offline spaces with ads, and in some cases have hired international iconic figures and local film star for their ads. These aggressive strategies, which have also included raffling off Apple products, have attracted massive amounts of users, resulting in a 125% increase over the last 6 months.

3). SNS Decline

Facing the onslaught of Sina and Tencent Weibo, SNS sites like Renren and Kaixin001 are facing a clear decline in their user bases. The overall SNS population has decreased by 2.2%. CNNIC’s report pointed out that Social Networking Sites in China are relying heavily upon social gaming to attract users. which at the end of there are little stickiness to talk about, so migration to other more social centric platforms such as weibo became clear choices. For comparison between SNS and weibo growth see the graph below.

4). Microblog Rising

Over the last 6 months, the overall weibo user base has increased by 208.93% while usage rates have increased to 40.2%. The design of all weibo products (Sina, Tencent, Sohu, NetEase, etc.) is based purely on user-generated content of conversations and engagement, which has allowed them to surpass existing Chinese SNS sites’ functionality, with easy access to embed multimedia. The result cannot be anymore clear with a 208% increase vs. a 2% decline.

Other user population segments include: Online Gaming has shown a minor fall in usage rates due to the slow development cycles of games from studios; Blogs, with numerous launches of lite blogs over the last 6 months, have seen limited growth throughout the general blog market. A 1% increase in population is proof enough; Online Video Sites user populations have increased by 6.1% but usage rates have surprisingly stayed fixed at 62.1% (believe it or not?).

CNNIC’s report also included a detailed analysis of the internet user population demographics, including professional backgrounds, income levels, mobile internet usage levels, and other topics ranging from the volume of internet fraud to hacking. I will cover these in more detail in a blog early next week.