Enterprise live streaming services reached 760 million yuan (US$110.49 mn), experiencing fast growth in the past 4 years when it first exceeded 100 million yuan in 2015. It’s expected to reach 1.14 billion yuan (US$165.73 mn) in 2019 and grow further to 2.21 billion yuan (US$321.29 mn) in the year 2021.

By total revenues, the first tier enterprise live streaming service companies are Gensee, Vzan, and Vhall, followed by the second-tier players including POLYV, CC Video, Mudu.tv, and Baijiayun. Vzan and CC Video rank on top in China’s enterprise live streaming market by the total number of clients, followed by POLYV, Mudu.tv, Vhall, Baijiayun, and Gensee.

China’s top live streaming mobile apps

The revenues of Chinese search engine companies were estimated to reach 135.76 billion yuan (US$19.74 bn) in 2018, with an increase of 20.8% YoY according to iResearch.

China’s search engine companies revenue is estimated to reach 158.08 billion yuan (US$22.98 bn) in 2019 and 183.17 billion yuan (US$26.63 bn) next year.

Newsfeed advertising has become another revenue driver for China’s search engines in recent years. Check out top newsfeed advertising platforms in China here.

iResearch forecasts that the growth-driving effect of news feed advertising on the revenue of search engine companies will be increasingly obvious in the following two to three years.

China is to see internet advertising market exceed over US$90 billion by 2019, over 80% of which is from mobile advertising. The US$36.02 billion native advertising market accounted for nearly 50% of the total in 2018.

71% of digital ad spending in China will be traded programmatically by 2019. The internet giants BAT controlled around 80% of programmatic buying.

Also read: Top short video apps compared: Tik Tok vs. Kwai

China’s business travel market recorded a total GMV of 192.8 billion yuan in 2017, up 19.5% over the previous year, which is estimated to exceed 230 billion yuan (US$35.9 bn) in 2018, according to the whitepaper published by GZ Meiya and Jinlu Consulting.

China had already surpassed the USA to have the highest business travel spending in 2016 and totaled 344.6 billion yuan in 2017. However, the penetration rate of China’s business travel management is only 7%-8%, which is well off the Euramerican Market (40%), according to GBTA.

62% enterprise staffs are troubled by fussy reimbursement process. Some enterprises applied the managed travel platform mostly for the airline ticket and hotel reservation, still at low-level cooperation.

Currently, the gross margin of the managed business travel market was only 4%-6%. In particular, small and medium-sized companies had only 3%-4% gross margin and 0.3%-0.4% net profit margin, all below the average, according to Analysys.

This attributed mainly to travel management companies’ traditionally simplistic method of generating revenues. In most cases, travel management companies took the advantage of the price difference of airline ticket. The GMV of airline ticket accounted for 81.3% of the total in 2016. However, the profit derived from airline ticket become less and less.

Within this market, online travel agency continued to steal the share of traditional travel management companies, especially of small and medium-sized travel management market.

Between 2013 and 2016, the share of airline ticket declined by 4.2% in managed travel market while hotel saw a 3.2% increase in share. Online car-hailing also entered this market.

Over 6 million Chinese traveled to Europe in 2017; check out insights on custom Europe tourism

China’s shared accommodation market generated a total transaction of 14.5 billion yuan (US$2.27 bn) in 2017, up 70.6% from a year earlier, according to State Information Center of China.

A total number of 78 million people were involved in this market, among which 76 million were tenants. This market had developed roughly 3 million domestic housing resources and raised near US$540 million in financing, up 180% over last year.

Chinese millennials were the main user group of shared accommodation platform. Around 70% of them had received undergraduate or further education. Female landlord accounted for 60% of the total. Tenants aged between 18 and 30 accounted for 70% of the total tenants.

First-tier cities and some second or third-tier cities like Chengdu, Chongqing, and Xi’an are the mainstream markets of shared accommodation. Landlords from top 10 ranking cities accounted for near one-half of the total housing resources.

The transactions of shared accommodation market are expected to reach 50 billion yuan (US$7.83 bn) by 2020 with 6 million housing resources offered and over 100 million tenants.

[REPORT] China outbound tourism trend 2018; the beauty and uniqueness are the primary consideration

China cross-border retail e-commerce sales are expected to exceed US$115 billion in 2018 with a growth rate of over 15% YoY and reach US$144 billion by 2021 according to data from Analysis.

The total transaction value of cross-border e-commerce market in China will exceed RMB 8.8 trillion (US$1.4 trillion) in 2018, accounting for close to 30% of total e-commerce transactions in China.

The cross-border e-commerce retail import market is expected to see RMB 511 billion (US$79.9 billion) in transactions in 2018 with an increase of over 25% YoY and exceed RMB 620 billion (US$96.98 bn) in 2019.

Market Shares of China’s Cross-border E-Commerce Retail Imports Market

China’s cross-border e-commerce retail import market is led by Tmall Global (27.6%), NetEase Kaola (20.5%), JD Worldwide (13.8%), Vipshop (9.8%), and Amazon Global (9.1%).

Big e-commerce campaigns like Double 11, Black Friday, and Double 12 are all in the fourth quarter, which greatly prompted the sales of cross-border e-commerce platforms. Read more  »

Also read Tmall Global trends & insights 2018

GroupM China publishes its Spring 2018 edition of This Year, Next Year: China Media Industry Forecast report, estimating that ad spending in China this year will grow 5.2% to reach 585.8 billion yuan.

GroupM China on April 25 published its Spring 2018 edition of This Year, Next Year: China Media Industry Forecast report. It forecasts that total ad spending in the Chinese market will reach 585.8 billion yuan in 2018, with growth rate rebounding to 5.2%.

This is partly due to stable upward trends in terms of macroeconomics and consumer confidence, combined with anticipated improvements in the structure of China’s economy and a rebound in the global economy, all of which will support continued growth in overall ad spending. Another key factor is that 2018 is a big year for sports marketing, drawing significant amounts of attention to TV screens and strongly guiding a flow back towards traditional live broadcasting.

The report also estimated a 4.3% growth in total ad spending in 2017 in China. While the rate of growth in Internet ad spending had slowed down, the sector remained the main driver of growth in total.

This Year, Next Year: China Media Industry Forecast is part of GroupM’s media and marketing forecast research and uses data mainly sourced from its parent company, WPP, across various sectors including advertising, public relations, market research and communications. The report features in-depth analysis of changes in market share and placement trends for different types of media.

GroupM is Kantar’s sister company within WPP.

Traditional TV commercials will see a continued fall in overall spending, with expenditure shifting further toward content marketing and digital marketing and an increase in brand placement in variety shows and dramas. In 2018, the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, FIFA World Cup in Russia and Asian Games in Jakarta will provide a shot in the arm for TV media, while the development of e-sports will create new growth points for traditional sports.

OTT (Over The Top) TV, such as smart TV sets or Internet-based TV set-top boxes, is currently attracting the attention of even more consumers and advertisers and becoming a new area of opportunity in the big-screen market.

Compared with previous years, Internet advertising spending is forecast to grow at a slightly slower rate of 13.5% in 2018, with advertising on e-commerce platforms accounting for a bigger share than any of other Internet ad formats in this category. In 2017, Internet advertising further developed in the directions of product placement, native advertising, and intelligent marketing.

Laws and regulations to deal with the burgeoning information network industry have been issued in quick succession, while news feed ads and “self-media” may also face more strict government scrutinies. As a result, advertising and marketing campaigns will need to continue to discard outdated methods and pursue innovations while complying with the relevant laws, rules, and regulations.

The out-of-home advertising market remains buoyant thanks to its advantages, such as viewability, reach, consumer proximity and low interference, and ad spending growth for this sector is forecast to remain high at 9.2%.

Backed by further developments in big data, new technology and the Internet of Things (IoT), OOH marketing can now be integrated into a variety of “things”, which could evolve into another point of entry to the IoT era, maximizing the value of integrated marketing and cross-screen linkages, which will aid the further development of programmatic buying for outdoor advertising.

Radio media stabilized after experiencing a wave of growth driven by the popularity of mobile radio and private car ownership. Developments in AI and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) are creating opportunities for innovation in radio media. Newspapers and magazines are currently tapping their core assets, exploring new business growth points, and moving into the knowledge economy market.

Rycan Di, Chief Investment Officer at GroupM China, explained: “The media outlook is continually changing and coalescing, consumer behavior is constantly changing, and marketing campaigns are also transforming to different models and exploring methods such as content marketing and intelligent marketing in search of better audience experiences and greater effectiveness.

Patrick Xu, CEO of GroupM China and WPP China, commented: “Consumption upgrades are coming into play in many sectors in China, and as consumers place increasing emphasis on quality of life and brand experience, improving the quality and personalisation of brand marketing is also increasingly important and will be a strong driver of growth in the advertising ecosystem. However, the trend towards active development across the whole ecosystem is inextricably linked to the creation of uniform standards, improvements in measurement, and further increases in industry integrity, as well as to the combined efforts of all industry players.”

China mobile app user insights 2018

This post was originally published on Kartar.com.

China smartphone sales reached 455.9 million units in 2017, an increase of 1.1%, according to data from Analysys. It forecasts the total smartphone sales will decrease to 437.99 million units in 2020.

China smartphone market declined 15.7% year-over-year (YoY) in Q4 2017 and 4.9% for the whole of 2017 according to IDC.

REPORT Digital screens wider and deeper influence in China

China is the largest outbound travel market and expected to see 103.4 million trips in 2021 constituting 40 percent of all Asia Pacific outbound travel, nearly four times that of the #2 and #3 markets being South Korea (25.6 million) and India (21.5 million) respectively according to a latest Mastercard Report.

Forecasted international outbound trips from the top 10 Asia Pacific markets by 2021

1. China – 103.4 million
2. South Korea – 25.6 million
3. India – 21.5 million
4. Japan – 19.4 million
5. Taiwan – 16.3 million
6. Malaysia – 14.2 million
7. Australia – 11.8 million
8. Singapore – 11.7 million
9. Indonesia – 10.6 million
10. Thailand – 9.1 million

Forecasted top 10 fastest growing Asia Pacific markets by international outbound trips (2016-2021 CAGR)

1. Myanmar – 10.6%
2. Vietnam – 9.5%
3. Indonesia – 8.6%
4. China – 8.5%
5. India – 8.2%
6. Myanmar – 10.6%
7. Vietnam – 9.5%
8. Indonesia – 8.6%
9. China – 8.5%
10. India – 8.2%

2016-2021 Outbound Travel Forecast

The total number of China’s tourists is estimated to exceed 4.1 billion person trips in 2015, and reach a total revenue of 3840 trillion yuan (US$617.40 billion), according to China Tourism Academy.

In Q1 2015, the total transaction value of China online vacation travel market reached 11.06 billion yuan (US$1.80 billion), an increase of 59.8% year-on-year and 21.7% QoQ; and the total transactions of China online travel market reached 94.76 billion yuan (US$15.28 billion) in Q1 2015, an increase of 51.3% YoY and 9.4% QoQ.

In the first half of 2015, online travel business contributed a lot in China’s travel market, and many big online travel operators received investment from enterprises domestic and abroad. Jingdong invests US$500 million funds in Tuniu; Ctrip, after acquired eLong, received US$250 million investment from Priceline, which was the largest international online travel company. And, Lvmama received 500 million yuan (US$80.39 million) strategic investment from Jin Jiang International Holdings Limited Company.

The outbound tourism also maintained a steady growth in H1 2015. The total number of outbound and inbound tourism reached 127 million, with an increase of 9.8% year over year and the number of outbound tourists reached 61.9 million visitors. Japan, the United States and some European countries were hot travel places. Most people would book tickets or flights through mobile apps. Read more about China’s tourists travel intention in 2015 here.

Under the proactive fiscal policy and relatively easy monetary conditions, tourism consumption and industrial investment would have further promotion. Travel agencies, online travel companies, and other areas of the field would have more room for development. Besides, with the penetration of China mobile travel apps and Chinese citizens’ trend to travel, 2015 is forecasted to be a fruitful year for tourism industry.

Also read: Baidu Revenues Reached US$2.67B in Q2 2015

Weibo reported net revenues of US$107.8 million in Q2 2015, compared to US$77.3 million for the same period last year. Advertising and marketing revenues for the second quarter of 2015 totalled US$87.9 million, compared to US$59.6 million for the same period last year.

Income from operations for the second quarter of 2015 was US$2.3 million, compared to a loss from operations of US$10.7 million for the same period last year. Non-GAAP income from operations for the second quarter of 2015 was US$9.7 million, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of US$7.0 million for the same period last year.

Weibo’s MAU growth continues to be robust, reaching 212 million in June, as Weibo sought to improve user experience, increase penetration into lower tiered cities and expand their partnerships with the television and movie industries. More advertisers adopted Weibo social advertising, especially in the SME segment, where Weibo revenues grew 163% year over year and the number of customers reached 443,000 in the second quarter of 2015.

Sina’s Second Quarter 2015 Highlights

• Net revenues increased 39% year over year to US$107.8 million
• Advertising and marketing revenues increased 47% year over year to US$87.9 million.
• Weibo Value Added Services (“Weibo VAS”) revenues increased 13% year over year to US$20.0 million.
• Net income attributable to Weibo’s ordinary shareholders was US$4.2 million, or US$0.02 diluted net income per share, compared to a net loss of US$15.5 million for the same period last year, or diluted net loss per share of US$0.08.
• Monthly active users (“MAUs”) were 212 million for June 2015, up 36% year over year. Mobile MAUs represented 85% of total MAUs in June 2015. Daily active users (“DAUs”) were 93 million on average for June 2015, up 34% year over year.

Also read: WeChat MAUs Reached 600 Million in Q2 2015

A new report from research and advisory firm Gartner identifies the top 10 strategic technology trends that CIOs in China should consider in order to pursue business growth and remain competitive throughout the digital era.

The top 10 technology trends highlight the current state of technology adoption in China, as well as the maturity and traction of the technologies. Organizations in China are expected to spend $140.6 billion (RMB 854 billion) on technology products and services in 2014, according to Gartner’s latest forecast.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses, or an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage.

China is a large IT market full of potential and competiveness,

said Amy Teng, principal research analyst at Gartner.

China’s technology trends align with other regions worldwide – but with some variations because of unique market conditions. Enterprises in China are in various stages of adoption, with some mature organizations being early adopters of technology and some still in the early stages of evaluation.

“Although the top 10 technologies that Chinese companies should factor into their strategic planning processes are defined here, this does not necessarily mean investment in all of the listed technologies is essential,” said Ms. Teng.

However, companies should look to make deliberate decisions about each of them during the next two years.”

The top ten strategic technology trends for China in 2014 include:

Mobile Device Diversity and Management

The rapid adoption of BYOD makes enterprise mobility strategies more complex and challenging. Through 2018, the growing variety of devices, computing styles, user contexts and interaction paradigms will make managing this diversity a priority strategic initiative for enterprises CIOs. In China, CIOs experience an even more serious situation because the region exhibits a faster device replacement cycle due to the popularity of low-tier smartphones. Another distinct differentiation is created by the culture of Chinese employees, who tend to work longer hours and increasingly mix work with life, a trend that extends to their digital “self.”

Mobile Apps and Applications

Mobile apps and applications will continue to grow in 2014 and there is no sign of that trend slowing down, driven by the strong demand for mobile services that have moved beyond the early stage of enabling information and content access to bringing new capabilities to consumers and businesses. With the popularity of using mobile devices to explore the physical world, Chinese companies are employing new interactive technologies such as quick response (QR) code, audio, augmented reality, gesture and Near Field Communication (NFC) with QR code being the most popular one. Enterprises are gearing up efforts on mobile applications and early adopters, including banks and airlines, have introduced mobile apps for consumers or employees, such as mobile banking, self-check-in services and in-cabin services.

Social Commerce

Social commerce is the use of social networks and social media to support sales transactions. China is well ahead of western counterparts by almost five years in successfully deploying all use cases of social commerce. The most common use case for social commerce in the U.S. and Europe is product reviews with limited success in social shopping and social network commerce. China proves contrary with social network commerce dominating the market. Tencent QQ, Tencent WeChat and Sina Weibo are the three major social networks in China that enterprises leverage to drive social commerce.

Internet of Everything

Gartner forecasts that the Internet of Things (IoT) will include 26 billion units installed by 2020 and related IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion, mostly in services, in 2020. China’s leaders have provided support and encouragement to bring China to the forefront of IoT development. A number of key policies have been developed to target IoT innovation, with nine areas being identified as the applications areas that the government will invest in. These are: smart industrial, smart logistics, smart agriculture, smart grid, intelligent medical, smart household, intelligent transportation, smart city security and management, and smart environment protection.

Hybrid cloud and IT as a Service Broker

Hybrid IT is the mission and the operational model for IT in a cloud computing world. As more cloud computing services emerge, the value of a trusted broker for the enterprise will increase. This broker will ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness in provider selection, governance, payment, integration, management, security and compliance. Most Chinese enterprises have started leveraging cloud computing and their users are increasingly accepting the new modes of working. However, for reasons both external and internal, Chinese enterprises are yet to form successful Hybrid IT environments. Nevertheless Gartner expects that the demand for hybrid solutions will intensify over the next three years, forcing companies in China to deploy technologies to secure, manage and govern solutions across a hybrid architecture.

Cloud/Client Architecture

The high growth in smartphone sales and the thriving mobile apps ecosystem coupled with a broad choice of devices and brands have created a seedbed for enterprises to adopt a new cloud/client applications model in China. The availability of 4G telecom services and a few emerging public cloud services will further fuel the development of mobile services and change of client/cloud architecture in imminent future. CIOs and enterprises IT will need to think about how they can provide a unified and seamless integrated users experience across mobile endpoint devices and re-gain the software engineering best practices to balance among monolithic, modular, object- and service-oriented approaches. Fortunately, Chinese enterprises have relatively less legacy to abandon when adopting this new model.

The Era of Personal Cloud

Users in China are increasingly adopting various personal cloud services such as Tudou for streaming video, WeChat for social network, Qzone for cloud storage and data synchronization across devices and platforms. However, the major difference between personal cloud service in China and most other mature markets is the current revenue model. Most of the personal cloud services provided in China are currently free to customers – even the streaming video services. This looks set to change as Chinese businesses look increasingly at how they can develop their services over the personal cloud to their employees, business partners or customers to improve their operations and expand revenue.

Software-Defined Anything

Software-defined anything (SDx) decouples the IT services (such as computing, networking, security, and storage) from the hardware underneath, hence extending the concept of virtualization into a new level in which all data center resources are abstracted, pooled and automatically managed. The core components of SDx in data centers include compute virtualization, software-defined networks (SDNs), and software-defined storage (SDS). In China, SDN is rising very fast in Type A enterprises, as well as in large e-commerce and cloud services providers. Although SDS is at a very early stage, its potential market opportunity has attracted globally established providers such as EMC and HP, while Chinese vendors such as DataCore and global startups such as Nexenta have also introduced relevant solutions.

Web-scale IT

To most of Chinese enterprises, Web-scale IT is a new concept that will be driven by the trend of consumerization. The rise of consumer culture is changing the way enterprises do business. Digital marketing and e-commerce require an efficient and agile IT support and, given the large mobile and Internet population of China, scalability will be a big issue. All these factors challenge the conventional IT approach in terms of scalability, cost, and speed to respond. Web-scale IT focuses not only on potentially being able to scale IT-related facilities and technology, but also the associated operational processes and supporting organizational structure in the context of a more risk-embracing culture.

3D Printing

3D printing is achieved by using an additive process through a device able to create physical objects from digital models. The market is broadly divided into three segments: bioprinting, consumer 3D printing and enterprise 3D printing. The main advantage of 3D printing is to build custom or low-volume items that aren’t being mass manufactured. There are many very real opportunities for 3D printing in China, from product design and manufacture of 3D printers and printing materials, bioprinting to 3D printing services provided as an export.

Reference: Emerging Market Analysis: China’s Top 10 Technology Trends in 2014 (You need sign in to view this report).