China’s social-media boom (a)

(1)The most populous nation moves online

Chinese social media market is an unique market which without all major foreign  social media websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, but Chinese social media industry has the largest population of internet users and social media users and fastest growing market of social media. Until December 2011, China had 513 million internet users, compared with 67 million in Germany, 121 million in India, and 245 million in the United States.

China also has the fast growing population of internet users. Chinese e-commerce is expected to triple by 2015, when sales could reach 2.7 trillion RMB (about 420 billion USD) - 20% higher than the projection for the US market.

A recent market research from McKinsey & Company introduced the consumer behaviour of Chinese internet user. A new McKinsey survey of 5,700 Internet users in China has found that 95 percent of those living in Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 cities are registered on a social-media site; in addition, the country has by far the world’s most active social-media population, with 91 percent of respondents saying they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, compared with 30 percent in Japan, 67 percent in the United States, and 70 percent in South Korea. The survey, which explores the behaviour of Chinese consumers on social networks, is the first of its kind in China.

Another research from Netpop indicates that 92% of the 243 million broadband consumers in China (224 million) ages 13+ contribute to social media. This is compared with only 76% of the American broadband population. Furthermore, 41 million of them are contributing content online through six or more activities (uploading photos, publishing blogs, posting ratings/reviews, etc.). 

Coppy Cat??? or Good Leaner???

In the digital age, people are pushed to do similar things to support our digital life. The picture below shows what Chinese and US netizens use to share video, purchase online, maintain social networks, search online, and blogging. Although there are some inappropriateness here because some features of the applications we use are not exactly the same, the picture vividly depicts how similar a way of life we are sharing with each other as long as we are netizens.

 Population Map, how big of the Chinese Social Media Population convert to Real Country's Population

(2) Deep dive: China’s unique social-media landscape

Because of technology and politic issue, local Chinese sites competely dominate the landscape. Facebook and Twitter are fixtures of daily online use in West and in other Asia countries, there is no access to these sites in China. Currently, Chinese market is dominated by 5 major market players.

 

 Qzone, which 44 percent of respondents said they use the most. The website is owned by media conglomerate Tencent, which is bundled with the top market share instant message tools in China QQ. Users are allow to create their own Web pages for posting updates, photos, and videos.

Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, with 19 percent and 8 percent respectively. Weibo means “microblogging” in Mandarin. Weibo products offer many similar features of Facebook and Twitter. Users may post personal updates with a 140 character limit, up;oad photos and videos, and message other users. Actually, Sina Weibo is a very creative products. Sina Webo introduced a multimedia function a year and a half before Twitter did. Tencent Weibo is the primary competitor. Although Tencent Weibo has lower market share than Sina Weibo, the strong customer base of QQ, another major product of Tencent contribute large customer growth to Tencent Weibo.

Renren with 19 percent market share, ren means "people" in Mandarin. RenRen means everybody. Previously, RenRen was named schoolmate network. Like Facebook, it began as a social-networking site exclusively for college students. While now open to a general audience and changed name to People to extand its target market.Although it is still dominated by university students and recent graduates.

Kaixin with 7 percent market share, Kaixin means "happy" Mandarin. Kaixin is one of the major competitors of RenRen, the targets white-collar office workers. It is also a Facebook-like site.

to be continues... ^_^

Reference
Chiu, C, Lin, Davis & Silverman, A 2012, China’s social-media boom, viewed on 23 September, http://www.mckinseychina.com/2012/04/25/chinas-social-media-boom/