China’s Weibo is ahead of Twitter when it comes to mobile

Newest data from the government’s internet center show that mobile web users now make up 90 percent of China’s netizens. Photo credit: kk9k.

On Twitter, 82 percent of monthly active users (MAUs) are on mobile. But, in a sign of how quickly China has moved to smartphones, Weibo, which is basically China’s Twitter, sees 89 percent of its MAUs on mobile.

The new statistic comes from Weibo’s latest earnings report for the second quarter of 2016, which was published yesterday. Twitter’s data is for the same time period.

Weibo is also surging ahead of Twitter – which is blocked in China – in terms of growth. While Twitter lost 3 million active users in the past 12-month period (the tally is now 313 million), Weibo added 70 million, going from 212 to 282 million MAUs.

See more on social media in China:

• Mary Meeker’s new internet report shows how China supersizes the web
• WeChat’s global expansion has been a disaster
• WeChat’s competitor to Slack has arrived