---Mobile netizens ranked 1st with a stable status; Group purchase and online shopping stably developed with rapid growth speed

On Jan 15th, 2013, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 31st Statistical Report on Internet Development (‘the Report’) in Beijing.

According to ‘the Report’, as of the end of Dec, 2012, Chinese netizens achieved to 564 million while the Internet penetration rate kept 42.1% with a slow growth speed. In contrast, each index for mobile network increased in a more rapid speed than PC network. Moreover, Weibo applications and e-commerce applications in mobile showed a relatively high growth rate.

Growth rate of Netizen scale slowed down, while mobile netizens saw an obvious growth rate
‘The report’ shows that as of the end of Dec, 2012, Chinese netizens achieved to 564 million with 50.9 million newly increased netizens. Internet penetration rate kept 42.1%, up by 3.8% compared with the end of 2011. These two indexes indicated that the growth rate had continued to slow down since 2011. Meanwhile, Chinese mobile netizens kept rapid growth rate, amounting to 420 million with annual growth rate of 18.1%, which is far more than the general growth rate of the number of all the netizens. In addition, the rate for accessing Internet through mobile continued to increase from 69.3% to 74.5%, thus it maintained more stable status of the first priority for Internet access. Whereas, it can still not surpass the number of whole PC netizens (including desktop computer and portable computer).

Currently, Chinese netizens number has been at a high level while netizen growth rate and penetration rate entered into a relatively stable period. The popularity of terminal instruments like smart phone and upgrade of wireless network stimulated the rapid growth of mobile netizens in further.

Internet access is for over 90% families; nearly two thirds Weibo users adopt Internet
‘The report’ shows that number of the users through Internet access for Internet bar and school computer room declined sharply, thereinto, users of Internet bar declined by 5.5%, and users of school computer room declined by 3%. In contrast, the indoor Internet access kept high level that 91.7% netizens chose the Internet access at home with the growth rate of 3.4%. Percentage growth of the personal Internet accessing instrument and the improvement of Internet access resulted in such a phenomenon.

As of the end of Dec, 2012, Chinese Weibo users scale hit 309 million, increased by 58.73 compared with the end of 2011. Weibo users occupied 54.7% of the whole netizens.　Mobile Weibo users scale hit 202 million, occupying 65.6% of all the Weibo users (nearly two thirds).

Online shopping and group purchase kept high growth rate while commercial applications by mobile expanded rapidly
‘The report’ illustrated that as of the end of Dec, 2012, Chinese online shopping users scale hit 242 million with the online shopping percentage up by 42.9%. Compared with 2011, online shopping users increased by 48.07 million with the growth rate of 24.8%. With the background that the growth rate of netizens gradually slowed down, online shopping still presented the rapid growth trend. The group purchase data shows that the group purchase users amounted to 83.27 million with the utility rate up from 2.2% to 14.8%. The group purchase users kept a relatively high growth rate, up by 28.8%.

Affected by some factors that the online marketing is getting more and more emphasis, and the netizen shopping concept gradually changed, quite a few merchants broke up the simple business model, and explored the Internet channel besides the traditional channel for the brand-new sales growth highlight. With the gradual penetration to the applications in Internet channel by traditional merchants, the traditional and Internet channels are integrated with the gradually boosting rate.　

With the rapid development of Internet economy, mobile e-commerce applications rapidly increased. The percentage of netizens purchased online increased 6.6% with 2.36 times user number than that of 2011. In addition, the percentage of users for mobile group purchase, mobile online payment, mobile online bank increased among all the mobile netizens behavior. Users scale for these three mobile applications saw a growth rate of more than 80%.