Chinese Internet users reached 338 Million in Q2 2009

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has just published their mid-year statistical survey report on the Internet Development in China:

• The Number of Chinese Netizens increased by over 40 Mil during the first half of 2009, representing a 13.4% growth rate compared to 2008. By June 30 2009 the total number of Chinese Internet Users has reached 338 Million, which represents a penetration rate of 25.5%

• 320 Mil (or 94.3%) of all online users have broadband access

• 155 Mil (or 45.9% of all netizens) use their mobile devices to go online. In the first half of 2009 this number increased by 37 Mil. 28% of these Mobile Internet Users are considering to use 3G in the second half of 2009.

• The number of Rural Netizens surpasses 95 Mil, accounting for 42.7% of the total online population, 15% growth alone during the past half year

• Although security software is installed on 82.4% of all devices, security still remains a huge problem with 195 Mil Chinese experiencing Viruses/Trojans and another 110 Million becoming the victim of Account/Password Fraud

Entertainment, Online Research & Communication account for over 50% of all online activities while levels of Online Shopping & Payment are still comparatively low. Online Gaming grew by 30 Million users and in total 181 Million Chinese netizens now write their own blog. Here is a more detailed ranking of what Chinese people are actually doing online:

• Music: 85.5%
• Network News: 78.7%
• Instant Messaging: 72.2%
• Search Engines: 69.4%
• Video: 65.8%
• Online Gaming: 64.2%
• Email: 55.4%
• Having Blogs: 53.8%
• Forum/BBS: 30.4%
• Online Shopping: 26%
• Online Payment: 22.4%
• Online Stock Speculation: 10.4%
• Travel Reservation: 4.1%

The majority of Internet users with over 60% are still in the age group of 10-29 although users between 30-49 are slowly catching up. 31.7% of Chinese Internet users are students. 81.5% of all users earn less than 450 USD/month. 23.5% even earn no more than 75 USD/months.

The report also touches some ethical implications of the rapid Internet growth in China. While people in general believe the Internet broadens their horizon (90%), allows them to save time (81.6%) and facilitates information sharing (78.5%), the report also points out that 1 out of 6 Users has the tendency to become an Internet addict. 77.5% believe their life is invariably linked to the Internet. The average hours per Internet users spent online per week has for example risen from 16 to 18 hours in the last 6 months.

Interesting to note is also that 84.3% of all Internet users consider the Internet the most important and most trustworthy source of information.

Over 117 Million Mobile Internet Users in China

CNNIC recently released two reports on China’s mobile Internet, according to the reports, there are already over 640 million mobile users in China by the end of 2008, among them about 117.6 million users have used mobile devices to access Internet in last six months, more than doubled from a year ago. The report said that about 34% of China’s mobile Internet users are active mobile Internet users everyday.

Some key findings of the report are:

• 74.6% of China’s mobile Internet users are male;
• China’s mobile Internet users are very young, even compared with China’s Internet users. 70.8% of mobile Internet users are under 19 years old, vs. 35.6% of Internet users;
• Similar to Internet usage, mobile instant messenger is the most popular mobile Internet applications, with about 31.2% penetration rate;
• About 6.6 million users are using mobile music services, but I’m not sure about the definition of mobile music in the report;
• About 39.6% of users, I suppose it is mobile Internet users instead of all mobile users, are reading Mobile Newspapers, which is a service by China’s mobile carriers;
• The report on mobile media also said about 15.7% users are using mobile video service, which is unexpectedly high since there was no 3G network available. I think it is partly because CNNIC only did the survey in four big cities, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. But we should note that in the report, mobile video service refers to playing video in your mobile phone, no matter it is streaming directly from mobile Internet or it is transferred to your mobile from computers;
• Mobile novel service is quite popular in China with 27.7% usage rate.

9月14日成中国“网民节”

中国网民去年达到2.2亿超过美国，成为世界第一。人多就是牛！全世界也就是中国能专门给网民弄出来个节日。

1月6日上午，中国互联网协会在首届中国网民文化节上宣布，确定每年的9月14日为中国网民节.

据悉，此次活动调查历时3个多月时间，参与评选的网民人数接近50万人次，调查显示66.8%的网民希望设立网民自己的节日。

追溯到1987年9月14日，我国发出首封电子邮件，众多网民选择这一具有历史意义的一天，作为中国2.9亿网民自己的节日。 左侧是徽标。标志整体呈现一个舞动奔腾的人，彰显了“以人为本”的服务理念。由字母＂e＂和汉字＂文＂结合而成。＂e＂象征着网络；＂文＂代表文明，文化。整体以中国红为主色调，展现了中国网民的阳光与热情，豪迈与拼搏，展现了中国网民文化节的时代魅力和文化内涵。