Marbridge Daily

CNNIC: China's Smartphone Mobile Internet Users Reach 330 Mln

CNNIC, 5/22/13

According to a recent report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), China had 330 mln smartphone-based mobile internet users as of the end of February 2013, up by 140 mln from December 2011, accounting for 79% of China's mobile internet users. The number of mobile internet users rose by 18.1% YoY to total 420 mln users as of the end of December 2012, representing 74.5% of overall internet users.

Among mobile handset users who had never used their phones to go online, 10.7% said that it was because their phones were incapable of internet access, while 52.8% said it was because they simply didn't know how.

On average, the study found, Chinese mobile internet users spend 124 minutes per day using their phones for mobile internet access. 22% of users fall into the "heavy user" category, with four or more hours per day of mobile internet use. Smartphone users spend an average of 131 minutes per day using mobile internet services, compared with 103 minutes for non-smartphone users.

84.6% of mobile internet users said they had not paid for any mobile internet products in the past six months. Willingness to pay was even lower among smartphone users, with a paltry 14.7% of mobile internet users saying they had paid for mobile apps or content. Among these, 63.7% had paid for mobile games, and 30.3% had paid for mobile novels.

The top five search engines by mobile internet user share were Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) (91.4%), Google (16.1%), Sohu's (Nasdaq: SOHU) online search subsidiary Sogou (15.9%), Tencent's (0700.HK) online search engine Soso (14.4%), and internet services and security software provider Qihoo 360's (NYSE: QIHU) So.com (12.2%). Mobile internet users may access more than one mobile search engine.

Baidu also led the mobile mapping market, with 40.9% of users, followed by Google (23.7%) and AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP) (17.7%). Pre-installed mobile mapping apps accounted for another 17.7%.

Only 13.2% of mobile internet users had used their handsets to make payments. A majority of these — 63.6% — used third-party applications such as Alipay, followed by bank card-based mobile payments (39.2%). Operator-developed solutions such as talk time-based payments and mobile wallets lagged behind, at 21.3% and 6.6% respectively.

60% of users said they had heard of QR codes. 38.2% of these had actually used QR codes.

52.9% of mobile internet users said they had used Tencent's (0700.HK) WeChat (Weixin) mobile messaging application in the past half-year. 70.3% of users said that WeChat had not had a significant impact on their use of other messaging apps.

International brands continue to lead among Chinese smartphone internet users, with Samsung, Nokia, and Apple accounting for 15.5%, 15.1%, and 14.6%, respectively, of users, followed by Taiwanese mobile handset manufacturer HTC (2498.TW) (7.2%), Huawei (6.3%), Lenovo (0992.HK) (6.3%), and Yulong Computer Telecommunication (Coolpad) (4%).

China's 2008-2012 Mobile Internet Users

Keywords: user habits mobile search handset vendor smartphone users wireless mobile mapping mobile Internet mobile gaming mobile application market share 2D barcode national statistics mobile IM CNNIC