China internet statistics 2009

The China National Network Information Center (CNNIC) has just published their last report about the “Internet development in China” and chinese internet is going well...

Number of Internet Users in China
China stays at the first position with an internet population close to 338 million of people (+13.4% since the end of 2008). The penetration rate is 25,5%, which means that this population is going to grow significantly again probably for the next decade.

Mobile Internet Users
320 million of those users have a broadband access to connect to internet and 155 million connect via their mobile phone (again, china is the country with the most mobile internet users).

3G growth
In spite of the international financial crisis, 3G subscriptions increased to 32.1% last 6 months and the report indicates that 14.8% of the internet users who do not connect via their mobile phones, plan to do it within the next 6 months...

This report tends to promote the development of internet industry in direction of the 3G market. Chinese websites must be compliant and user friendly with mobile phone specifications if they want to enter this market (consider the broadband limitation, the maximum screen resolution...).

Music fosters the growth
The report indicate that chinese users are very interested in entertainment (music is the first center of interest in China and movies interest grew by 10% the last 6 months), socials networks and information.

Customers Online in China
The increase of commercial transactions is low: only 87,88 millions of users purchased goods on internet (+4.8% since the last 6 months). The report explains it with the financial crisis, but network security is also a big problem in china.

Security Issues
Indeed, only 29.2% of the chinese internet population believe that online transactions are safe. Since the last 6 months, 195 million of users were attacked by virus or trojan horses and 110 million of user’s accounts and passwords have been stolen.

The next step for the chinese internet industry will be to develop the users confidence. To do that, they must develop secure technologies, normalize online payment process and educate chinese customers to online threats.