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◇ As of December 2013, China had 618 million Internet users, with 53.58 million new ones. The Internet penetration rate was 45.8%, a growth of 3.7 percentage points compared with the end of 2012.
◇ As of December 2013, China had 500 million mobile phone Internet users, a growth of 80.09 million compared with that at the end of 2012. Among all the Internet users, the proportion of those using mobile phones to access the Internet rose to 81.0%.
◇ As of December 2013, China's rural Internet users accounted for 28.6% of total Chinese netizens, reaching 177 million, up by 21.01 million compared with the figure in 2012.
◇ Of all Internet users in China, those who surfed the Internet via desktop computers and laptops accounted for 69.7% and 44.1% respectively, slightly down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.8 percentage points respectively compared to 2012. Those who used mobile phones to surf the Internet grew rapidly from 74.5% to 81.0%, an increase of 6.5 percentage points.
◇ There were totally 18.44 million domain names in China. Specifically, the .cn domain names increased by 44.2% over the same period of last year to 10.83 million, and accounted for 58.7% of total Chinese domain names. As of December 2013, China had 3.2 million websites, increasing by 0.52 million in the entire year with a growth rate of 19.4%.
Limited growth of the Internet users in China, and surfing the Internet with mobile phones remaining the main impetus of the growth of Internet users
As of December 2013, China had 618 million Internet users, with 53.58 million new ones. The Internet penetration rate was 45.8%, up by 3.7 percentage points over the end of 2012. The penetration growth basically complied with the figure in 2012, and the overall growth of Internet users continuously slowed down. In the meantime, mobile Internet users continued to maintain a good momentum of growth, reaching 500 million, with an annual growth rate of 19.1%. Mobile phones continued to maintain their number one position as the Internet terminal. The high percentage of new Internet users surfing the Internet with mobile phones also indicates the boosting role of mobile phones in the growth of Internet users. Of the new Internet users in 2013, up to 73.3% surfed the Internet with mobile phones, a percentage far higher than that of the Internet users using other devices. Mobile phones are still the main driving force for the growth of Internet users in China.
Internet development in China transforming from quantity to quality
The Internet penetration rate in China was 45.8% as of December 2013, up by 3.7 percentage points over the end of 2012, and continued its slow pace of growth since 2011. On the whole, the theme of Internet development in China has transformed from “increase of penetration” to “deepened degree of usage”. The policies and environmental changes in recent years have also provided strong support for the depth of usage. Firstly, the national supporting policy has been issued. In 2013, the State Council issued Some Comments of the State Council on Facilitating Information Consumption and Expanding Domestic Demand, indicating the role of Internet in the overall economy and society. Secondly, the Internet has better combined itself with traditional economy, such as its good applications in shopping, logistics, payment or even finance. Thirdly, Internet applications have gradually changed people's lifestyle, exerting a great influence on people's basic necessities of life.
High-traffic mobile phone applications developing rapidly
In 2013, high-traffic required services, such as mobile phone videos and music, grew rapidly. Specifically, the users of mobile phone videos grew significantly. The number of users who used mobile phones to watch videos online or download videos was 247 million in China as of December 2013, an increase of 112 million over the end of 2012, or a growth rate of up to 83.8%. Mobile videos have risen to the fifth major application of mobile Internet. The utilization rate growth of the mobile high-traffic applications is mainly attributed to three factors. Firstly, users have tended to use mobile phones as their Internet access devices, and the overall Internet users have a continuously lower computer utilization rate. Secondly, the basic environment of usage has improved. For example, the development of smartphones and wireless networks has attracted more users to surf the Internet with mobile phones. Finally, the Internet access cost has reduced, such as lower Internet access expenses, monthly package cooperation between video operators and Internet operators, and other measures which have helped reduced the usage threshold for mobile videos.
Comprehensive platform applications based on social networking growing fast
In 2013, Internet applications such as microblogs, social networking sites and forums had a lower utilization rate, while platform applications related to instant messaging based on social contact elements developed steadily. The detailed figures show that the microblog users dropped by 27.83 million, and the utilization rate dropped by 9.2 percentage points in 2013. The overall instant messaging users, however, grew to 532 million with the boost of the mobile end, up by 64.4 million over the end of 2012 and with a utilization rate of up to 86.2%, maintaining the number one position. The mobile instant messaging developed rapidly, because on the one hand, instant messaging is well integrated with mobile communication, and on the other hand, such applications as information sharing, communication, payment and finance have been added based on social contact elements, which has greatly increased user stickiness.
Sluggish growth of online game users vs. rapid growth of mobile game users
The growth of online game users slowed down significantly in 2013. The utilization rate by Internet users dropped from 59.5% in 2012 to 54.7%. The number of online game users was 338 million, with an increase of 2.34 million only. Different from the overall size of online game users, the mobile-end online game users grew rapidly. The number of mobile game users in China reached 215 million as of December 2013, representing a growth of 75.94 million or 54.5% over the end of 2012. The sluggish growth of users in the overall industry and the rapid growth of mobile-end game users indicate that more users are shifting from the computer end to the mobile end in the game industry, and that the impact of mobile-end online games on the PC-end online games begins to emerge.
Sustained growth of online shoppers, with group purchase as the highlight
Business applications continue to maintain a high development speed, which is particularly prominent in online shopping, as well as the similar group purchase. In 2013, the number of online shoppers in China reached 302 million, with a utilization rate of up to 48.9% and representing a growth of 6.0 percentage points over 2012. The number of online group purchase users reached 141 million, with a utilization rate of 22.8% which represents a growth of 8.0 percentage points over 2012. With an annual growth of users by 68.9%, it is the most rapidly growing business application. The rapid development of business applications is closely related to the improvement of payment and logistics and the boosting of the whole environment, while the “reverse” growth of group purchase means that group purchase has entered a rational development period after the savage growth.