Chinese consumers spend more time online than US counterparts thanks to mobile usage
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Tomorrow's consumer Image: Chinese consumers are spending more and more time online thanks to the prevalence of mobile internet devices.
China is “always on”, according to Fiducia Management Consultants’ Thaddeus Mueller, with the average netizens spending 25 hours online each week.
Data compiled by digital agency, Havas Worldwide, shows some 81% of Chinese netizens log on via mobile, compared to 70% for desktops and just 44% for laptops.
Despite a slowdown in new user adoption, Weibo still remains China’s most influential social media platform. It reports 12.9m monthly active users, with each user spending an average of 90 minutes on the service each day.
Navigating mobile platforms in China presents both challenges and opportunities for lubes marketers. For example, apps like Weibo offer vast scale, but lack precision as user groups can only be targeted based on content they share.
Users viewing content without signing up to the service, which by some estimates is around the same size again as those who have signed up, cannot be targeted either. Likewise, managing feedback on such a scale requires a great deal of manpower.
Despite the challenges, m-commerce is growing rapidly. Downloads of mobile commerce applications in China grew by close to 80% in October year-on-year, due in part to Singles Day holiday sales. Alibaba attributed around 45-50% of Singles Day sales this year to mobile devices.