Mobile Net Users Will Surpass PC Users in China By 2013

The landscape of China’s internet is changing fast; perhaps faster than many internet companies are ready for. According to this DCCI report, China’s mobile internet users will surpass the number of PC users as soon as 2013. Note that China already has far more mobile phone users than it does PC users. Even when mobile internet users surpass their PC counterparts in 2013, given the vast number of mobile phone users in the country, China’s mobile internet market still has plenty of room to grow.

[Image source: Resonance China]

But that’s not all. The DCCI report touches on a number of aspects of China’s rapidly growing internet. Among the highlights:

• China’s internet advertising market is expected to grow by 40 percent or more each year for at least the next four years. The current 37 billion RMB/year market will expand to over 149 billion RMB/year by 2015.
• So far in 2011, nearly 40 percent of online advertisements have been for computer products. The next most popular categories are vehicles (13.9 percent), real estate (11.8 percent), and clothing (11.4 percent).
• Sales of smartphones in China passed sales of TVs back in 2009, and will barely surpass PC sales this year. By 2015, however, smartphones will be outselling PCs more than three-to-one.
• The use of Symbian as a phone OS is plummeting, and both Android and iOS will surpass it before 2012.
• People generally use Weibo and social networking sites for the same reasons. The only major differences DCCI found were that more people used Weibo to follow what their favorite celebrities were up to, whereas more people used SNS to keep in touch with old friends.
• The number one reason China Mobile users go online on their phones is to check up on news and current events (86 percent of users).

There’s much, much more where that came from, but the message is pretty clear. If you’re in China, and you’re not taking the mobile web user base seriously, you really, really should be. For the full rundown, check out DCCI’s complete report (PDF, Chinese).

[Via Resonance China]