I came across this report by China Internet Network Information Center or CNNIC recently.

(Isn’t the name of the two government agencies for Internet Development in Vietnam and China look the like? VNNIC and CNNIC??)

This is the 27th statistical survey report on the Internet Development in China, done in Jan 2011.

The report covers the basics like:

1. Overview of Internet users in China

• China has the most number of internet users in the world 457 million users. Broadband users reach 450 million or 98.3%. It’s a big surprise to learn that Broadband penetration rate in China is at such a high level. The number seems a bit exaggerated to me.

The broadband penetration rate in Vietnam is significantly lower, at about 13%.

• According to the report, Net citizens in China seems to be getting older with more than 41% of net citizens are more than 30 years old.

• Mobile net citizen is growing strong at 66.2%. Since China is such a unique place, i am wondering if the Mobile net citizens in China mostly use “smartphone” like when they access the internet. Will try to find out and update you all later on.

The potential for mobile marketing is already huge in China with about 303 million mobile net citizens. I would guess China already has the most number of mobile net citizens in the world.

• On average net citizens in China spend 18.3 hours online per week. That is really a huge number. The number is too big that it casts a doubt on my mind. I will need to verify this later on.
• As for educational background, this is where i think China has lots to do to catch up with other countries. The majority of internet users (78%) do not have undergraduate degree or even high school degree. This is important because that means the majority of Chinese net citizens seem to belong to the lower middle class income group.

This point can be illustrated further with the occupational graph below

or the Monthly income statistics below for China net citizens

2. China net citizen internet activities

Much like other countries, Search engine usage ranks at the top of activities china net citizen do online. Nearly 82% of net citizens in China use Search Engine in 2010.

Top Search engines in China are Baidu (75.5%), Google (less than 20%).

Online shopping reaches 48.6% utilization rate

It took me by complete surprise to learn that nearly half of China net citizens use online shopping actually.

Not only that online payment reaches 130 million users in 2010 in China. 130 MILLION mate, it’s a huge number.

The report also covers lots of other areas like:

• how SMEs in China use the internet
• how SMEs in China view their website as a marketing/branding/sales tool
• etc…

If you want to download the full report, here it is : 27th statistical report on China Online/Internet Development 2010.