China’s job hunting websites reached almost 450 million monthly internet users and the number of monthly visits totaled 3 billion in Q3 2015 according to iResearch.

51job.com (hereinafter called 51job) and Zhaopin.com (hereinafter called Zhaopin) were major job hunting companies in China. Total revenues of 51job was 520 million yuan (US$80.27 million) and total revenues of Zhaopin were 350 million yuan (US$54.02 million) in Q3 2015. Influenced by the autumn busy season of job hunting, operating revenues of both companies increased slightly.

Online job hunting revenues made up about 60% of 51job revenues in Q3 2015. HR and related revenues made up about 35%. Compared with Zhaopin, 51job was relatively concentrated in revenue pattern while also more reasonable given that non-online job hunting revenues.

Revenues except online websites of Zhaopin only accounted for about 10% in Q3 2015 including campus recruitment, career assessment and HR related revenues. The ratio was much lower compared with 34.9% of 51job.

The size of China’s online employment market was stable in the past 12 months. The number of monthly coverage users reached nearly 450 million from July to September this year with a slight down in QoQ rate and YoY rate. The downturn mainly resulted from rising mobile app users.

Monthly visits of China’s employment websites remained steady across the year and the peak appeared in March 2015. Post-Chinese New Year is often a period when many employees looked for new opportunities in China. A report from 58.com said as high as 65% staff in China would change job after the Chinese New Year because of no year-end bonus.

Zhaopin has surpassed 51job in online monthly reached users since May 2015. Monthly reached users of online websites of Zhaopin were 520,000 more than 51job. The soaring number of app users was mainly driven from superior user experience on Zhaopin’s mobile app.

Major employment websites maintained stable in terms of monthly reached users on mobile apps in Q3 2015. 51job maintained a total number of monthly coverage users about 2.6 million since May 2015. Zhaopin has been steadily growing in monthly users this year.

The gap in daily reached users had gradually widened between 51job and Zhaopin mobile apps in Q3 2015. Daily reached users of 51job declined slightly in September while the total increased in Q3 2015. Daily coverage users of Zhaopin declined in Q3 while still maintained a slight growth compared with Q2 2015.

51job spent 79.9% advertising spends of nearly 700,000 yuan on Weibo and other portal websites in Q3 2015. The ratio was 2.4 percentage points higher compared with the previous quarter.

Zhaopin invested far more spends in advertising than 51job in Q3 2015. 65.9% advertising spends were made available for real estate websites with 38.6 percentage points high compared to Q2 in Q3 2015. 28.6% advertising spends were in portal websites while might be supposed that Zhaopin wouldn’t want to have direct conflicts on portal websites. Advertising channels of Zhaopin were more diverse compared with 51job.

Looking for jobs through job hunting websites has become an avoidable trend. Compared to traditional job fairs, online employment websites are more efficient and less costly. Especially for university graduates, blindly sending resumes always had no effect.

Also read: China’s Talents in Internet Industry 2015

China’s mobile shopping market reached more than 519.99 billion yuan (US$80.25 billion) with an increase of 120.9% QoQ in Q3 2015 according to iResearch.

Mobile shopping market has developed quickly in China. The growth rate of mobile shopping came faster than the overall online shopping market in Q3 2015. Mobile shopping transaction sales reached 519.99 billion yuan (US$80.25 billion) accounting for 56.7% of total internet shopping sales.

Mobile shopping continued to reach China internet users. Transactions on mobile client accounted for 56.7% overall online sales with 5.9 percentage points higher compared to the previous quarter and 22.7 percentage points higher compared to the same period last year.

Alibaba (Tmall and Taobao) accounted for 84.6% of China’s mobile shopping market in Q3 2015. Jingdong cooperated with Tencent to transfer social networks users to shoppers. Suning tended to increase more traffic and sales by relying on Tmall of Alibaba. Vipshop added 5.6 million active consumers in Q3 2015.

China’s mobile shopping sales have exceeded the PC client since Q2 2015 and were still expected to climb in rapid growth according to iResearch. Available for accessing the internet at anytime and anywhere highly motivated mobile terminals as a link to boost integration of online and offline shopping.

In addition, with increasing activities in the rural market, online sales on the mobile terminal is predicted to occupy an increasingly important position relying on cheaper and more convenient equipment operating methods compared the PC client.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

China’s online retail market reached 945.1 billion yuan (US$143.5 billion) with a growth rate of 45% in Q3 2015 according to Analysys. The growth rate was lower compared with the previous quarters in 2015.

The growth rate of China’s online retail market slowed down in 2015. The market tended to mature. However, total online retail sales only accounted for 12.3% of total retail sales. The online market still faced enormous development opportunities.

More shoppers were active on the mobile end than PC in Q3 2015. Mobile online sales reached 524.3 billion yuan (US$79.6 billion) which surpassed PC as the major online shopping channel as of Q3 2015.

The business pattern of China’s B2C market remains the same in Q3 2015. Tmall and Jingdong dominated the market both in market and business innovative capacity. E-commerce suppliers were trying to win subdivision market to seek a breakthrough.

China’s online retail market has been stabilized since 2014. Three business formats have shaped, online fair, online department store, and online discount retailer. Tmall, Jingdong, and Vipshop were representative companies of each format.

Tmall was the earliest online fair platform in China which has built a relatively perfect system for followers. Tmall has been devoted to building a high-quality shopping platform by strict selection of merchants and to provide consumers a safe and efficient platform. Total online transaction values on Tmall reached 91.2 billion yuan (US$14.25 million) on Double 11 in 2015.

Jingdong started as an online magneto-optical store, but soon diversified, selling electronics, mobile phones, computers, etc. Self-built delivery stations and pick-up stations were the core of Jingdong’s diversified services.

Vipshop was a leading online discount retailer for brands in China. The Company offered high-quality and popular branded products to consumers throughout China at a significant discount from retail prices targeting at women buyers. Vipshop reported net revenues up by 63% to 8.67 billion yuan (US$1.36 billion) in Q3 2015.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

The post-95s refer to the generation of Chinese citizens born between 1995 to 1999. Compared to the post-90s, the post-95s is more active, and more adventurous to accept new things. In general, a large part of the post-95s are students and their parents generally are post-70s.

Female users accounted for 46% of post-95s mobile internet users in Q3 2015 compared to 40% in Q4 2014. The economy centered around female has seen the wider audience and greater development space along with significant changes in the gender structure of mobile Internet users.

Post-95s mobile users in tier-3 and lower tier cities increased by about 7 percentage points and users in tier-1 and tier-2 cities declined by 7 percentage points in Q3 2015 compared to Q4 2014. However, the overall smartphone users in tier-3 cities account for 55.3% compared to 53.8% of all post-95s users in tier-3 cities.

The post-95s enjoy personalized apps. The top 1000 apps used by post-95s only account for 59% of total comparing with 72% in overall mobile users.

The number of post-95s who spent over 1 hour on apps was less than the post-80s users in Q3 2015. The post-95s would launch an average of about 7.04 apps every day and access an average number of 18.43 times.

Apps on social media, security, education, video and gaming were most popular among the post-95s mobile users in China. The majority of post-95s would play mobile games during holidays or vocations. Business, travel and maps apps were the least popular mobile apps among post-95s which makes sense since most post-95s are still students and few are concerned about business or traveling.

The post-95s preferred UGC (user-generated content), PGC (professionally-generated content) and OGC (occupationally-generated content). They were more likely to participate in interest groups on QQ, WeChat, Weibo or other social platforms and half would download apps from recommendation of interst group leaders.

Over 60% post-95s pursued the appearance or design of apps. Beautiful design of apps would attract more post-95s in addition to useful features.

As the generation started connecting to internet from childhood, the post-95s have been the focus of the younger trend of the internet and mobile apps. Thus, mobile internet trends of the post-95s should not be neglected.

Also read: China Post-90s Online Users Insights 2015

Monthly active users of Weibo reached 227 million as of September 2015 with an increase of  33% YoY and daily active users reached 100 million with an increase of 30% YoY in Q3 2015 according to Weibo.

Normal users account for 96%, celebrity users account for 3% and verified users 1%.

76% Weibo users have high education background, 16% have medium education, and only 8% have low education background.

Users between 17 and 33 years old are major contributors of Weibo large information flow, which accounts for 83% mobile users. Male users account for more among Weibo users less than 24 years; and female accounts for more among users above 24 years old.

Eastern and southern citizens are more active on Weibo in 2015 in terms of regional economic level and education background.

Weibo VIP users increased by 60% in Q3 2015 compared to Q3 2014. With improving functions and services, more users upgraded to VIP membership in 2015.

Daily VIP applications increased by 98.1% YoY in Q3 2015. VIP revenues totaled over 100 million yuan (US$15.32 million) as of September 2015 according to Weibo. Weibo supports various kinds of payment methods for VIP users to pay for products and services.

Daily active users account for 81.5% Weibo users; however, the number of posts Weibo VIP users publish every day is 18 times more than daily active users.

Topics on society and celebrity are popular among Weibo users. Users can repost, comment and bookmark favorable posts, and reward quality long post authors.

Users spend more time on Weibo in 2015. Users utilizing Weibo only 1 day in each month becomes fewer while users using over 2 days increase obviously in 2015 compared to 2014.

Transaction values on Weibo Payment increased in the first three quarters of 2015 due to broadening payment usage such as paid articles, VIP members, fan headlines, rewarding, online shopping and so on.

More Weibo users reward favorable long posts authors with money in 2015. Long post authors gained about 44.54 million yuan (US$6.83 million) as of November 2015 with over 700,000 participators.

Male users account more for rewarding users. Users from 24 to 45 years old with steady income sources make up about 63% Weibo rewarding users, who normally pay a various small amount of cash as an appreciation to the quality content. The majority (82.9%) are common users and 84.2% have college education background and above. Users in eastern China account for the majority.

78.3% authors are male and 64.0% are verified users. High education background authors account for 85.9% and authors from 24 to 45 years account for the majority. These authors are most likely to live in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.

Verified authors on finance and media industry are more likely to get rewards from followers and transactions of those make up 57.4% of top 10 transaction values in 2015.

Paid article service has become an important channel for users to get information in 2015. Transaction sales from paid articles were 29.31 million yuan (US$4.49 million) as of November 2015 bringing revenues of about 130,000 yuan (US$19,925) for each author.

Women (59.3%) are more inclined to pay for paid articles than men. Common users account for 86.2% and users with college and above education background account for 88.6%. 68.6% paid article service users are between 24 and 33 years old.

Male account for 84.0% of authors who gain revenues from paid articles in 2015 and 94.7% of them have high education background. Major beneficiaries are from 24 to 45 years old. Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai account for over 70% of paid article authors. Revenues of authors in finance industry represent 37.6% of total revenues from paid content service.

The number of Weibo verified accounts on finance reached about 123,920 as of H1 2015 which published 13,850,681 posts in total and received 80.32 billion views, 38.48 million re-posts, 16.70 million comments and 4.91 million bookmarks.

Travel is also a hot topic on Weibo. The number of Weibo searches on tourist attractions reaches 133 million in 2015 reaching 45.74 million users. Attractions in east and south China are mentioned most on Weibo.

The number of total views reached 98.91 billion from November 2014 to October 2015 covering 47.70 million users according to Weibo. Monthly released posts declined while total views increased resulting from superior quality content on Weibo.

Weibo users who are interested in sports reach 196 million in 2015 with an increase of 4.8% YoY. Sports topic related users reach 16.9 million.

Among individual verified users on sports, over half are professional athletes and 39.8% are sport enthusiasts. Among enterprise verified users 65.5% are institutions in 2015.

220 million Weibo users mention mother care products with a growth of 16% YoY in 2015. Active users unleashing needs of mother care products are 6.8 million. Weibo gathers 96.85 million fan clubs in 2015.

Also read:  China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

China’s online accommodation booking market reached 24.983 billion yuan (US$3.89 billion) representing a QoQ growth of 27.98% and YoY growth of 82.16% in the third quarter of 2015 according to Analysys.

China’s online travel market reached 122.23 billion yuan (US$19.07 billion) with an increase of 18.0% QoQ and 45.9% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. The OTA market in China reached 5.96 billion yuan (US$0.93 billion) in Q3 2015 with an increase of 48.8% compared to the same period last year, led by Ctrip and eLong.

The online accommodation market maintained a rapid growth in the third quarter of 2015 under the constant promotions of China’s online accommodation and online travel agencies. Overall transactions of online travel market totaled US$19.07 billion in the third quarter and the OTA market in China gained US$0.93 billion.

Ctrip reached revenues of 10.762 billion yuan (US$1.68 billion) with 43.08% market share. Transaction values of Qunar were 5.63 billion yuan (US$0.88 billion) accounting for 22.54% online accommodation booking market. Ctrip, Qunar, eLong and Alitrip combined account for almost 85% total market share, 4.14 percentage points higher compared to the previous quarter.

Continue reading on China online travel booking users in Q3 2015 here.

China’s online accommodation booking companies have attempted in exploring more effective cooperation modes and integration methods between the online and offline. By an increasing number of China’s tourists and promotion of industrial chains, the online accommodation booking market in China will continue to grow in the future.

Also read: China Short-term Accommodation Market Overview 2015

China 5-star hotels gained 19.07 billion yuan (US$2.95 billion) in Q3 2015 although the number of 5 star hotels only accounted for 7% of total number of star hotels in China according to China National Tourism Administration.

12,037 out of 12,982 star-hotels in China tourism board registry have passed reviews by tourism administrations of corresponding provinces, among which the number of 2-star, 3-star and 4-star hotels together accounted for 92%.

Operating income of star hotels totaled 52.922 billion yuan (US$8.19 billion) in Q3 2015 in China. Food and beverage revenues reached 20.841 billion yuan (US$3.23 billion) accounting for 39.38% and room revenues were 25.381 billion yuan (US$3.93 billion) making up 47.96% of total revenues.

796 5-star hotels generated 19.07 billion yuan (US$2.95 billion) revenues making up over 34% of total revenues in Q3 2015. Room rental services and catering services were major revenue sources.

Average room spends were 330.18 yuan (US$51.10) per night with a rental rate of 58.47% in Q3 2015 in China. Average room spends of 5-star hotels were the highest and room spends of 1-star hotels were the lowest. The average rental rate of 4-star hotels was the highest, followed by 5-star hotels and 3-star hotels.

The top six regions with the highest room spends were Shanghai, Beijing, Hainan, Tianjin, Guangdong and Tibet. The top six regions with the highest room rental rate were Tibet, Hunan, Shanghai, Beijing, Guizhou and Xinjiang.

The average room spends increased in 21 regions compared to the average room spends index in Q3 2015 among which Shanghai increased by 33.95% compared with the previous quarter. Average room spends declined in 11 regions with Hubei Province dropping by 8.9%. The average rental rate grew in 25 provinces with the largest increase of 61.85% in Tibet compared to the previous quarter in Q3 2015.

With the popularity of online hotel reservation and OTA market and increasing demands of high-quality reservation, China’s star hotels are expected to gain more revenues.

Also read: China Hotel Search Behavior Overview 2015

The third-party mobile payment transactions exceeded 2.42 trillion yuan (US$0.37 trillion) in Q3 2015 with an increase of 5.4% compared to the same period last year and 64.3% compared to the previous quarter this year according to iResearch.

China’s third-party mobile payment market slowed down in the third quarter of 2015 compared to the previous quarter. However, the shopping season from November to December will show a boost to e-commerce and e-payment.

Alipay and TenPay combined accounted for 89.1% third-party mobile payment market in the third quarter of 2015 and Alipay (69.9%) led the market with an overwhelming strength according to iResearch. With the huge user base and the increasing usage of offline payment scenarios, the number of mobile payment users had a further increase.

Banks in China saw 27.138 billion e-payment transactions which totaled 553.07 trillion yuan (US$86.17 trillion) in the third quarter 0f 2015. Phone payment business and mobile payment business grew rapidly in this quarter.

Mobile payment services reached 4.542 billion transactions which valued 18.17 trillion yuan (US$2.83 trillion) up by 253.69% YoY and 194.86% YoY respectively. Phone payment had 78 million deals and totaled 4.76 trillion yuan (US$0.74 trillion) in the third quarter increasing 136.44% YoY and 203.18% YoY respectively.

Online payment had 8.212 billion transaction volumes increasing 15.95% compared to the same period last year and gained 432.81 trillion yuan (US$67.44 trillion) increasing 18.39% compared to the same period last year.

In the third quarter of 2015, non-bank agencies had online payment transactions of 2.131 billion valuing 12.8 trillion yuan (US$1.99 trillion) increasing 122.72% and 102.21% compared to the same period last year respectively.

Also read: China E-Payment Insights 2015

China’s online gaming market reached 35.39 billion (US$5.51 billion) in the third quarter of 2015 with an increase of 5.5% QoQ and 24.5% YoY according to iResearch.

Mobile gaming accounted for 35.1% China online gaming market while online gaming declined in terms of transactions.

Mobile gaming has become the driving force of China online gaming market. As users spent more and more time on smartphones and mobile games, the mobile gaming market was expected to exceed PC client online gaming.

The mobile gaming market in Q3 2015 was predicted to reach 12.41 billion (US$1.89 billion) with an increase of 11.9% QoQ and 72.0% YoY although Analysys, another Chinese research company, predicted it would reach 14.66 billion yuan (US$2.28 billion) in Q3 2015.

The increase was mainly due to more severe competitive game categories as FPS and MOBA and increasing IP games which have brought more traffic and fans. What’s more, a large number of students are obsessed with mobile gaming during summer holidays in August and September.

The most popular mobile games were role play games, cards games and chess games in the third quarter of 2015. China’s mobile gaming players are expected to reach 360 million generating transactions of US$50.1 billion according to RecordJapan, and the average weekly usage will be as long as 4.3 hours in 2015.

The overall online gaming market in China this year is expected to reach $22.2 billion (about 142 billion yuan), and officially surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest online gaming market according to data of TalkingData and Newzoo.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

China’s online travel market reached 122.23 billion yuan (US$19.07 billion) with an increase of 18.0% QoQ and 45.9% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. The OTA market in China reached 5.96 billion yuan (US$0.93 billion) in Q3 2015 with an increase of 48.8% compared to the same period last year, led by Ctrip and eLong.

Related: China Online Travel Booking Users Overview Q3 2015

China’s online travel market reached 122.23 billion yuan (US$19.07 billion) in the third quarter this year with an increase of 18.0% compared to the previous quarter of this year and 45.9% compared to the same quarter last year according to iResearch.

The growth mainly resulted from the increasing subdivision travel products such as parent-child travel, cruise travel, free and easy travel and so on. The maturing online travel market and peak travel season from September to November also drove the growth.

China OTA market reached 5.96 billion yuan (US$0.93 billion) in Q3 2015 with an increase of 48.8% compared to the same period last year. OTA ticket revenues grew by 41.7% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 compared to 31.0% in Q2 2015.

Hotel revenues of China’s OTA market grew 55.7% YoY in the third quarter this year compared to 51.1% in the previous quarter. Business holiday travel revenues increased 58.4% YoY in the third quarter this year.

China’s OTA market remained stable in Q3 2015. After the merger, Ctrip shared hotel resources with eLong and promoted the outbound train ticket booking service that they accounted for 62.4% of China’s OTA market.

Net revenues in the third quarter of 2015 of Tuniu increased by 127.5% year-over-year to US$469.4 million. The total number of trips from organized tours (excluding local tours) increased by 142.1% year-over-year and the total number of trips from self-guided tours increased by 181.8% year-over-year on Tuniu in the third quarter of 2015.

Also read: China Short-term Accommodation Market Overview 2015

China’s online video market reached 11.53 billion yuan (US$1.90 billion) with a growth of 31.9% QoQ and 62.7% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. Online video advertising accounted for 56.3% of the total online video revenues, among which 39.9% of 2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) were from mobile.

China’s online video market maintained a high growth rate in the third quarter of 2015 although the GDP slowed down. 56.3% China’s online video revenues came from the online advertising for 6.49 billion yuan (US$1.01 billion), 8.4 percentage points lower than the ratio of Q2 2015. Although online video advertising remained a dominant revenue source, non-advertising sources such as video value-added service revenues and others increased slightly.

Copyright distribution declined in the third quarter of 2015 compared to the previous quarter this year while video value-added service revenues increased slightly. Online video companies should make deeper research on users’ preference and make the video products more catered to consumers to improve non-advertising revenues.

China’s online video advertising market in Q3 2015 increased by 14.8% compared to the previous quarter this year and 56.1% compared to the same period last year. Overall, China online video advertising market has entered a stable growth period thus online video companies should provide a richer and more accurate video marketing services for advertisers to maintain a high growth rate.

2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) video advertising revenues were from mobile, accounting for 39.9% of the overall online advertising market and 22.5% of the overall online video market. The mobile video advertising market only made up 24.2% in the third quarter of 2014 and 35.4% in the second quarter of 2015. With further development of mobile internet and mobile services, video advertising on the mobile terminal will maintain a steady growth.

Also read: China Online Advertising Insights Q3 2015

Transaction values of China’s B2C online market reached 503.6 billion yuan (US$78.58 billion) with an increase of 49.7% in the third quarter of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014 according to Analysys.

Although China’s B2C market tended to slow down while it maintained a modest growth in the third quarter with 4 percentage points higher compared to the growth rate in the second quarter of 2015.

Owing to the Double 11 shopping festival and Black Friday cross-border shopping season, China’s B2C market is expected to achieve a much larger transaction sales. And from November to December 2015, Chinese online shoppers are expected to spend US$150 billion in total and the average expenditure will reach US$209.87 according to Adobe Digital Index.

China’s online shopping market has maintained a relatively stable structure: Tmall (54%) led the market with an overwhelming advantage, Jingdong (23.2%) came next, and followed by Vipshop (3.3%), Suning (3.2%) and Gome (1.6%).

Total online transaction values on Tmall reached 91.2 billion yuan (US$14.25 million) on Double 11 in 2015. Although the transaction sales during Black Friday shopping season this year haven’t been reported, consumers spent an average of US$79.22 per order and per capita consumption of more than US$156.25 on Nov 20th according to Ymatou.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

Tuniu reported net revenues of 127.5% YoY to 3.0 billion yuan (US$469.4 million) and gross bookings of 122.2% YoY to 4.0 billion yuan (US$621.7 million) in the third quarter of 2015. By providing high-quality products and services to customers, Tuniu expects to generate 1,811.0 million yuan to 1,857.4 million yuan of net revenues which represent 95% to 100% growth year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2015.

The number of trips sold on Tuniu increased by 110.4% to 1,668,325 in the third quarter of 2015 from 792,938 in the third quarter of 2014 including organized tours (635,555) and self-guided tours (369,719), and over 70% of orders came from mobile.

Revenues from organized tours were US$454.2 million in the third quarter of 2015, representing a year-over-year increase of 124.5%. The increase was primarily due to the rapid growth in demand for travel to certain international destinations, such as North America, Japan, Australia, Middle East, Africa and Europe, and domestic tours. Revenues from self-guided tours were US$10.5 million in the third quarter of 2015, representing a year-over-year increase of 165.8% which was promoted by the growth in travel to certain islands and domestic destinations.

Tuniu Third Quarter 2015 Highlights

• Net revenues increased by 127.5% year-over-year toUS$469.4 million in the third quarter of 2015;
• Gross bookings increased by 122.2% to US$621.7 million year-over-year in the third quarter of 2015;
• Total number of trips from organized tours (excluding local tours) increased by 142.1% year-over-year and the total number of trips from self-guided tours increased by 181.8% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2015;
• Mobile orders contributed to over 70% of total online orders in the third quarter of 2015;
• Sales and marketing expenses were US$53.2 million in the third quarter of 2015, representing a year-over-year increase of 180.0%;
• Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders was US$68.2 million in the third quarter of 2015, compared to a net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of US$16.16 million in the corresponding period in 2014; and
• 55 regional service centers were added in the third quarter of 2015 and Tuniu had 130 regional service centers throughout China as of September of 2015.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015

Source: Tuniu

China mobile gaming market reached 14.663 billion yuan (US$2.29 billion), an increase of 13.7% QoQ and 101.8% YoY.

China’s mobile gaming market began a rapid growth in 2012, which has attracted a large number of entrepreneurs and investors. However, China’s large mobile gaming companies had a tendency to join forces together which led to great pressure to small and medium sized developers that Matthew Effect was clearly heightened.

Tencent, Netease, and OurPalm controlled China’s mobile gaming market with a combined market share of 52% (Tencent 27.3%, Netease 18.1%, and Ourpalm 6.6%). New games flooded the market at an amazing speed. For example, a total number of 1,301 new games entered the market in October 2015. Role play games and card games were most popular.

China’s mobile gaming market is expected to reach US$50.1 billion in 2015 with about 360 million users and weekly average usage of 4.3 hours according to RecordJapan. The global mobile gaming market is predicted to reach US$250 billion with 1,500 million new users in 2015.

Also read: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights in Q3 2015

Advertising spend can reflect changes in the economic structure of China. Real estate ad spends decreased by 26.2% year on year and fell down to 28.6% in the first three-quarters this year compared to the same period last year according to CTR.

Related: China social media trend 2015

Following Chinese government’s promotion of “internet plus” strategy, online advertising market in China reached a growth rate of 94.7% as of 30 September this year. Taobao invested 1.3 times more in advertising from January to September 2015 compared to the same period last year, Suning 1.1 times, and Vipshop even 10 times.

China’s traditional advertising spends have declined in recent years by and large while it declined 7.3% as of 30 September this year out of expectation. The traditional advertising market in the third quarter decreased 10.1% compared to the previous quarter which reached a record low.

Print media newspaper and magazines advertising spends in this industry also decreased sharply with a growth rate of -34.5% and -18.5% respectively as of Q3 2015 compared to the same period last year. Advertising spend on TV and radio also declined while only the outdoor increased by 0.6%.

Beverage, cosmetics, foods, medicine, and business and service focused on TV advertising in the first three-quarter this year. However, the overall spends on TV advertising declined compared to the same period last year. Cosmetics decreased by 23.5% and business and service dropped by 13.7%. Medicine increased by 23.7% on TV advertising revenues.

Similarly with TV advertising, the overall radio advertising market also declined, among which real estate industry spend decreased by 8.5% in the first three-quarters of 2015 compared to spends in the same period last year.

Newspaper and magazine advertising has suffered a great hit. Even among the top 5 advertising sectors, advertising spends decreased to a large extent this year compared to the same period last year.

Compared to the large advertising revenues on the outdoor last year, the real estate industry was more prudent with only 5% increase in advertising in the first three-quarters this year. In general, the outdoor advertising market maintained a relatively good momentum this year.

Building video advertising, which mainly referred to the advertising on large LCD screens outside the building and on the TV inside the elevators, increased by 15.2% in revenues this year compared to the same period last year. Beverage, cosmetics and transportation industry declined in advertising spend while telecommunication and computer increased dramatically.

Chinese tended to spend more money on entertainment thus cinema video advertising gained the attention of the entrepreneurs. The overall cinema video advertising market grew by 56.2% among which the telecommunication industry increased by 107% YoY in the first three-quarters this year.

Video advertising on buses, trains, subways and such increased by 8.9% as of 30 September this year. With transit advertising costs increasing, some sectors reduced spend such as as entertainment, foods and events. In contrast, business and service sector sspent 19.5% more on transit video advertising in the first three-quarters this year.

Online advertising market gained a wide-range blossom with a growth rate of 94.7%. Finance industry with a growth rate of 57.4% YoY was the fifth-largest online advertising sector and the telecommunications was the largest. Jingdong, Taobao, Mogujie, Suning, Kaola and other e-commerce companies have invested heavily on online advertising.

Also read: China Advertising Insights 2015

China’s mobile internet maintained a solid development in the third quarter this year, and the basic pattern of China’s mobile internet remained unchanged compared to the first half-year of 2015 according to TrustData.

Apple still took the first position in China’s smartphone market with a penetration rate of 33.4%. Xiaomi overcame Samsung as the second-largest smartphone brand and the largest smartphone vendor in China.

After China’s three telecommunication companies went through swaps of senior executives in this quarter, China Mobile declined in the market by 1.1 percentage points lower compared to the first two-quarters this year while China Unicom and China Telecom increased to various degrees.

Users accessing the internet through 4G network exceeded 3G and 2G in Q3 2015 in China representing a penetration rate of 16.2%. Over half of mobile phone users were the most likely to access the internet by Wi-Fi. Public places offering free Wi-Fi really helped to attract customers, especially for restaurants, hotels, KTV, and so on.

More Chinese were willing to spend time on mobile apps that 16.4% opened more than 16 apps every day compared to 12.4% in the first half this year.

Among the top 20 mobile apps by monthly average users, nine apps were from Tencent. WeChat exceeded QQ in monthly active users among the top 20 mobile apps as of September this year.

WeChat and QQ undoubtedly led China’s social communication platforms. Baidu Post Bar, as a place gathering like-minded people, also gained millions of advocates.

Depending on hot IP dramas and variety shows iQIYI pulled up to Tencent Video and tied for first place in monthly active users in this quarter while users spend more time on iQIYI compared to Tencent Video.

Major mobile video market maintained the same in the first four apps while Nokia X Video player ranked the fifth by monthly active users much out of expectation.

Similar with mobile video market, mobile news market had a relatively big change from the fifth to tenth music apps by monthly active users. The overall usage time of news apps increased compared to the last two-quarters.

A stable pattern of China’s mobile travel market was basically formed that Qunar, Ctrip and LY shared the market. The total number of China’s tourists was estimated to exceed 4.1 billion person trips in 2015 and reached a total revenue of 3840 trillion yuan (US$617.40 billion) according to China Tourism Academy, among which online travel platforms and mobile apps benefited a lot in ticket booking, hotel reservation and travel products.

Influenced by the rush of Alipay, Huabei, JD Baitiao and other online payment and internet financing products, banks in China released relevant profitable policies to enhance transactions and active users. Top 20 online banking apps showed small changes in this quarter.

Taobao’s dominance maintained relying on 386 million of annual active buyers and 346 million of mobile active buyers. Meituan Group-buying, Jingdong, and Dianping followed while after emerging between Meituan and Dianping their market share might increase in the next quarter.

About 35% China’s online shoppers purchased cross-border products this year, and cross-border online shoppers mainly gathered in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou… which was a function of city development level and citizens revenues. Although cross-border online shopping tended to be normalized by uplift of logistics, consumers’ rights and interests couldn’t be safeguarded timely and properly owing to long distance. The uppermost three cross-border apps were Daling, Red, and Kaolahaigou by monthly active users.

Meituan, Dianping, and Nuomi ran China’s mobile group-buying market in this quarter, and Ele, Meituan, and Baidu Waimai competed for the first position in the food-delivery market. After large input of allowance to attract users in regardless of prime cost, the food-delivery market would go depressed or prosperous still under mists.

Also read: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights in Q3 2015

The advertising business admanGo’s survey data shows that internet advertising accounts for only 14% of total advertising spend in Hong Kong in Q3 2015.

Most online advertising were on PC or laptops in Hong Kong while only 4% targeting the mobile devices. TV advertising accounted for 30% of the overall advertising spend, newspapers 30%, and magazines 9%. 39% advertising is focused on print, higher than the overall China’s advertising on print media.

China’s online advertising is expected to account for 43.7% of the entire advertising market, 23.7% from mobile. Print media advertising accounta for 9.0%, TV 29.3% which are declining year after year predicted by eMarketer. And the total advertising market in Hong Kong is estimated to increase by 6.2% compared to last year with the fastest growth from online adverting according to ZenithOptimedia.

Also read: China Social Media Marketing Trends in 2015

Sina Weibo reported net revenues of US$124.7 million for the third quarter this year, compared to US$84.1 million for the same period last year. Advertising and marketing revenues for the third quarter of 2015 totaled US$105.9 million, compared to US$65.4 million for the same period last year.

The increase was mainly driven by Weibo’s advertising that could enable its customers to perform people marketing and target audiences based on user demographics, social relationships, interests, and behaviors, to achieve greater relevance, engagement and marketing effectiveness on Weibo.

Income from operations for the third quarter this year was US$13.9 million, compared to a loss from operations of US$7.8 million for the same period last year. Non-GAAP income from operations for the third quarter of 2015 was US$21.5 million, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of US$3.9 million for the same period last year.

Monthly active users (“MAUs”) of Weibo reached 222 million as of September 2015 and 85% from mobile, increasing 33% compared to the same period last year and 10 million compared to the previous quarter owing for strong consumption of video, photo, and key opinion leader content. Daily active users (“DAUs”) reached 100 million on average for September 2015, up 30% year over year.

Sina’s Third Quarter 2015 Highlights

• Net revenues increased 48% year over year to US$124.7 million in Q3 2015;
• Advertising and marketing revenues increased 62% year over year to US$105.9 million this quarter compared to US$65.4 million for the same period last year;
• Net income attributable to Weibo’s ordinary shareholders was $14.5 million, or diluted net income per share of $0.07, compared to a net loss of $6.7 million for the same period last year, or diluted net loss per share of $0.03;
• Monthly active users reached 222 million in September 2015, up 33% year over year and 85% from mobile;
• Daily active users reached 100 million on average for September 2015, up 30% year over year.

Read more on Tencent Q3 2015performance here.

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

Source: Sina Weibo

Kantar Worldpanel reported 4.7% growth rate in China’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market for the last 52 weeks ended September 11th 2015. The overall market in the third quarter increased by only 2.7% in sales volume which decreased to a record low in recent three years.First-tier and second-tier cities grew by only 0.7% compared the previous quarter this year in transactions while small and less developed cities maintained a high growth rate of 6.5% in FMCG sales. Traditional shopping malls, supermarkets and convenience stores in key cities tended to pace at rush of booming online shopping market.

International retailers continued to lose competitiveness in Chinese FMCG retail market. Market share of international retailers in the third quarter of 2015 was only 13.5%, one percentage point down compared to Q3 2014. Compared with fast expansion to small and less-developed cities by local retailers, international merchants were losing advantages in brand and fame especially in large cities due to high pricing. The penetration rate of international retailers in China dropped to 29.6% in Q3 according to Kantar Worldpanel.

Contrast to the sluggish of offline retail market, Chinese online FMCG market continue to maintain a high growth rate. The total transaction value online has reached over 60 billion (US$9.46 billion) this year. However, online sales of FMCG products only made up 3% to 4% of the total online retail market. In 2015, nearly 40% of families purchased FMCG products through online stores, representing 6 percentage points higher compared with the same period last year.

E-commerce in China was expected to reach US$672.01 billion in 2015, accounting for over 40% of global e-commerce retail sales according to eMarketer.

Also read: China E-commerce Market to Reach US$3.8 Trillion in 2018